
Class. 

Book 

Copyright^? _ 

COPXRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 



OVER 

BLAZED TRAILS 

AND 

COUNTRY HIGHWAYS 

THE STORY OF A MIDSUMMER 
JOURNEY 



By 

FRANK H. CLARK 



Lisle, N. T. 
1919 






Copyright. 1919, by 
Frank H. Clark 



DEC 29 1919 



Printed by 

William M. Stcrrs 

Lisle, N. Y. 



9 21 



"Vl€ | 






^ 






To "H. H." 

Are Inscribed 
These "Observations" by 
The "Observer," 



CONTENTS 

When You Were a Boy 9 

The Frontier 11 

Our Remote Ancestors 14 

History Repeats 16 

Far Call of Dudley 18 

The Watering Trough 21 

Dudley's Mills 22 

Yorkshire of Old 24 

Old Ways and New 26 

A New Farm Product 27 

Susquehanna Valley 28 

Esther Morris 31 

An Old Battle Field 33 

Painted Post 35 

Canisteo Valley 37 

Aunt Olive's Silk Dress 39 

At Chautauqua 40 

The Wayside Inn 42 

Horace Beat Us to It 44 

An early Start 45 

A Blazed Trail 47 

Hot Chicken, No? 49 

Lake Erie, Adios! 52 

On the Maumee River 55 

Slick Country Roads 57 

South Bend, Indiana 59 

The Fourth Day 61 

Along the Illinois 63 

The Fifth Day 65 

Siege cf Detroit 67 

Bontiae's Undoing 69 

A Sabbath Day's Journey 72 

Seeking a Trail 74 



CONTENTS 

Out of the Mud 77 

The Seventh Day 79 

Joseph and Maroni 81 

Brigham Young S3 

Traversing Iowa 85 

The Trail of Blood 86 

A Western Hold-up 90 

Omaha , 92 

Lincoln 94 

A Simoom 96 

An Evening Drive 100 

The Friend in Need 101 

The Mountains 103 

Cheyenne, Wyoming 104 

Suspended Animation 110 

All From Lisle 112 

Denver 116 

Colorado Springs 119 

And Manitou 120 

"Walt Mason" 124 

Pinched? Not Us 126 

Traversing Kansas 127 

"Shall Auld Acquaintance" 129 

Winning California 131 

A Bridge to the Moon 133 

In "Old Misery" 134 

Mark Twain's Town 137 

Crossing Illinois 13S 

With the Hoosiers 140 

Central Ohio 141 

A Road to the Moon 142 

The Last Day's Drive 143 

Seeing Things 145 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 



WHEN YOU WERE A BOY 

When you were a boy, did you live 
near a lake, or a river, or a mill-pond, 
or a swimming hole, big enough to 
float a boat, or a raft, or a plank, or a 
log? And didn't you buy, build or im- 
provise some sort of a floating craft 
with which to navigate immediate 
and communicating waters? And when 
you explored the islands mid main- 
land you had discovered, didn't your 
fancy populate them with strange 
people, principally Indians, with a 
sprinkling of cannibals, and pirates, 
and things? 

And when you tired of the water, 
didn't you fall back on good old terra 
firma, and answer to the call of the 
hills and their woodlands? Of course 
you did; and you made a bow and 
some arrows and robbed the old roos- 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

ter of a few of his tail feathers for 
four war bonnet., and then rushed off 
to the rendezvous in the woods to 
play Indian. 

There, in imagination, the moss 
covered mounds with their scarlet 
flames of squawberries and winter- 
green, were Indian graves, marking 
the entrance to the "happy hunting 
grounds/' of numerous noble red men 
who once called this land their own — 
and all that. And you built wickiups 
there, or went over to the pines and 
arranged more elaborate apartments 
by utilizing the enclosures already 
brcwn-carpeted with fallen pine nee- 
dles, and set off by closely standing 
young pine trees. 

Perhaps you made your armament a 
little more realistic by driving a nail 
into the head of your arrow and filing 
it off to a sharp point so, if the arrow 
should hit the target, it would stick 
there and quiver, indisputable evi* 
dehce of your marksmanship. 

If it did so happen that your hit 
was registered on the chin of one of 
your playfellows, it would stick and 
quiver just the same, and, when re- 
moved, would leave a scar which that 
boy would carry all through his years 
to come. And yet, you may be sure 

10 



THE FRONTIER 

tliat, in later years, whenever the mir- 
ror, or another's inquisitive eye, cen- 
tered his thought upon that little scar, 
a smile would break upon his lips and 
brighten his eyes as he recalled the 
old millpond and its strange craft, the 
wooded hill and the moss covered 
mounds, the wickiups and the pines. 

Men and women are just boys and 
girls grown older. Someone has said, 
"grown up," but they don't all grow 
that way. If they retain the best that 
was in them to begin with, and do 
"grow up," the joy of life will be no 
empty phrase, and disappointments 
will not be overshadowing and bitter. 

It is human nature and it sticks; 
on this half of the world at least boys, 
grown men, are lured by the far mys- 
teries of the pulsing tide, cr the 
stjrange whisperings of the forest 
primeval and trackless plains. And so, 
in the serious adventures of life, they 
have ever gone down to the sea in 
ships or followed the aborigines into 
the sunset. 

THE FRONTIER 

Just using round numbers for the 
ease of it, in fixing the idea— 300 
years ago when our Pilgrim fathers 
ran their small boats up on the Massa- 

11 



OV£R &LAZED TRAILS 

diusetts sands and used Plymouth 
Uock physically, at least, as a step- 
ping' stone to higher things, the east" 
em boundary of tins strange laM they 
liad come to marked, for them, the 
western frontier of that day. 

Within a period of 150 years and 
before the American Revolution, the 
Pilgrims and other colonists had forc- 
ed the frontier beyond the boundaries 
of the New England colonies; and 
their encroachments upon the domain 
of the American aborigines had be- 
come so persistent and comprehensive 
that the Indians had begun to voice 
discontent, and Urge a determination, 
once for all, of a fixed line of demark* 
ation between white and Indian ter- 
ritory. 

A result of the Indian complaint was 
the conference at Fort Stattwix, (af- 
terwards Fort Schuyler, and located 
within the present limits of the city 
of Rome, N, Y,), which framed the 
treaty known as the "Treaty of Fort 
Stanwix/' That was 150 years ago — 
1768, The treaty fixed the frontier as 
between the colonies and the Six Na- 
tions, the Delawares and the Shaw- 
ahese, 

It is a matter of interest now to re^ 
call that boundary line which marked 

12 



THE FRONTIER 

the western progress of the "star oi 
empire" during the first 150 years. It 
began at a point on the Allegheny riv- 
£r above the present city of Pittsburgh, 
Pa., and ran northeasterly across 
Pennsylvania to the head waters of 
Towanda creek, which stream it fol- 
lowed to the Susquehanna and con- 
tinued up that river to Oghwaga (Owe* 
go, N» Y.) ; theftce it ran across to a 
point on the Delaware river below 
Hancock, and up that river to the pres- 
ent village of Deposit, Broome County, 
N. Y> Thence the line ran north, pick- 
ing up the Susquehanna again at the 
mouth of the Unadilla, and cantiu* 
ing up the latter stream and its left 
branch to the head waters* North and 
west of this line was recognized as 
Indian territory. Incidentally, it may 
be remarked that, after the American 
revolution, a few years later, there 
was not a vestige 'of that line left. 

One hundred years after Sir Wil- 
liam Johnson of Johnson Hall, repre* 
sentative of the Crown, in New York, 
and the governors and commissioners 
representing Pennsylvania, New Jer- 
sey and Virginia, concluded the Treaty 
of Fort Stanwix, the United States of 
America, through its commissioners, 
concluded a treaty with the chiefs and 

13 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

headmen of the various tribes of the 
Sioux Indians, at Fort Laramie — which 
was in Dakota at the commencement 
of the negotiations, but was in the 
newly organized Territory of Wyom- 
ing at the time of the final Indian sig- 
nature to the treaty in November. 

The Union Pacific rail road was be- 
ing built at that time, and the pri- 
mary object of the treaty was to elim- 
inate Indian troubles from the mass of 
engineering and other difficulties 
which were to be reckoned with in that 
great undertaking. In the occomplish- 
ment of this object, the aboriginees 
were pressed yet farther back by ad- 
vancing civilization. 

That was in April-November, 186S — 
fifty years ago. And where is the fron- 
tier now? It is not. The pressure of 
civilization, in 150 years, carried the 
frontier out of the New England col- 
onies into mid-New York and Pennsyl- 
vania. Another 100 years carried the 
line two-thirds of the way across the 
continent; and within the past fifty 
years it has vanished in thin air. 

OUR REMOTE GRANDSIRES 

Three hundred years are not so 
much in world history, not so very 
much measured in generations; but 

14 



OUR REMOTE GRANDSIRES 

they are sufficient, however, to make 
one's ancestrial grandparents so many 
times great, that the family relation- 
ship becomes a mere tabulated state- 
ment of almost impersonal facts. 

When the time is cut down to 150 
years it has become altogether a 
different proposition. Personal rec- 
ollections of one's grandfather's grand- 
father are possible then if one's grand- 
father was possessed of sufficient 
longivity and a good memory. Under 
such circumstanses the grandsire of 
150 years ago, despite his several de- 
grees of remoteness, may seem to 
warm up a little, and his story may 
take on the saving garb of human in- 
terest. 

A century and a half ago a grand- 
father of a grandfather of the two 
men who are to shift the scenes and 
the stage settings for the story which 
is to follow, had already served with 
the colonial troops in the French and 
Indian war and the stege of Quebec, 
and in the expedition against Cuba 
and the siege of Havana, in the war 
against Spain; and he had returned 
to his fields and family, in western 
Connecttc/iiit, and engaged himself in 
the quiet pursuits of peace. 

The lure of the frontier became 



15 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

compelling after a few quiet years; 
and the last Indian totem had hardly 
been traced, signatory to the Treaty of 
Stanwix, when this young Connects 
cut soldier, turned farmer, had asso- 
ciated himself with others under the 
spell of the lure, and entered upon the 
fateful plains of Wyoming, in the 
beautiful Valley of the Susquehanna, 
What followed is history. 

HISTORY REPEATS 

These two descendants of the 
Connecticut soldier were born and 
reared on lands watered by streams 
tributary to the Susquehanna, and as 
well on the Indian side of the frontier 
limits "once for all" fixed at Fort Stan- 
wix, On reaching man's estate, they, 
too, felt, and yielded to, the compell- 
ing lure of the frontier; and, follow* 
ing that same "star of empire," sought 
cut and found another and later Wy- 
oming. It was but a little time — not 
much more than a decade — after the 
treaty of Fort Laramie, that these two 
had pitched their tents, so to speak, 
within the shadow of the Rocky Moun> 
tains and under the most wonderful of 
all blue skies, 250 years and 2,500 
miles from Plymouth Rock. 

It is a tradition of the village 



19 



HISTORY REPEATS 

that no Lisle boy, who has bared his 
feet to the waters of Dudley creek and 
thoroughly burned his unprotected 
legs in the hot Summer sun while a- 
wading in that stream, can ever wan- 
der so far from the valley that some- 
time, a call does not rise up out of 
his submerged youth sufficiently strong 
to bring him back to the willows and 
alders, shading the banks of the rip- 
pling stream. 

It so happened that our two young 
men who went into the ragged edge 
of civilization under the lure of the 
frontier, remained in the stately pres- 
ence of the snow-crowned Rockies, be- 
neath the azure vault which arches 
them over, until the shattered line of 
the aborigines' resistence broke 
against that granite escarpment where- 
in nature allied herself with the inva- 
ders; and the frontier became a theme 
of the old-timer's romance. And then 
they crossed over the backbone of the 
continent, and traveled down the west- 
ern slope to where the melting snows 
of the mountains lose their soft, cool 
waters in the green waves of the west- 
ern ocean. 



17 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 



FAR CALL OF DUDLEY 

But a time came when, despite the 
influence of the silent mountains, tho 
dignified stateliness of the giant red- 
woods and firs, many centuries old, 
and a setting sun painting an opales- 
cent sea, they harkened back to the 
distant tinkling and musical murmur- 
ing of the waters of Dudley creek as 
they swirled and tumbled about the 
age-worn stones, arcund the exposed 
roots of the willows, and through the 
grass fringed pools. 

And eventually they did yield to the 
call of youthful memories and returned 
to the old home town, if only to lean 
over the rail of the Cortland street 
bridge, under the wide sweeping 
boughs of the ancient willow tree, am: 
look into the brown dcbtlis of the 
flashing waters there and listen for the 
dreams of other days. 

And here and hereabout they still 
remain, having again picked up the 
tangled thread of life practically at 
the spot where their lives began. 
These two men, however, having hark- 
ened to the call of mountain and plain. 

18 



THE START 

and to revisit the scenes of their 
western experiences, recently drove 
(in a modern way) over blazed trails 
and other ways, two-thirds the way 
across the continent and returned ; 
and the experiences of the Pilot and 
the observations of the Observer on 
that journey make tip the travel story 
which follows. 

THE START. 

There were three in the party — two 
who were to go through to Colorado 
and Wyoming; and one who wanted 
to goi, but couldn't. All had been there 
before — many years ago — and were 
yielding again to the call of the moun- 
tains and plains, and reviving their 
recollection of experiences and ad- 
ventures incident to those romantic 
years. 

The night before, Howard Franklin 
had driven down in his "Franklin" 
car — so recently from the factory 
that it had but 190 miles to its credit, 
when he arrived in Lisle. This was 
the car which was to carry the party 
through to the Rocky Mountains and 
return; and he was to drive it, thus 
becoming the "Pilot" of this story. 

While the Pilot and Frank Clark, 
his fellow traveler, to be, were eating 

10 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

their bacon and eggs by lamp light, 
preparatory to an early start, they 
were joined by Charlie Bliss of Killa- 
wog; and thus was the party com- 
plete for the first day out. Of course 
these were Lisle boys, more or less 
"grown up," and certainly grown old- 
er; not necessarily old boys, but for 
the time at least, just Lisle boys. 

Special preparations for the trip 
were nil. The "Franklin" touring car. 
just as it was run out of the factory a 
tew days before, eliminated the ques- 
tion of railroad transportation; and 
with that went sleeping and dining 
car troubles. Hotel accommodations 
and restaurants await the traveler 
along the way. 

Wearing apparel and incidentals, in 
the usual traveling bags, extra wraps 
and lap robes, an extra bag of addi- 
tional tools, a camera and a pair of 
thermos bottles, in a case, made up 
the luggage of the party. There was 
plenty room for this !n the body of 
the car, between the front and rear 
seats. 

The Pilot had provided a cover, 
made up of "top" material, fitted to 
the car, to snap on the curtain fasten- 
ers at the back and on the two sides 
as far front as the driver's seat, where 



20 



THE WATERING TROUGH 

this cover could be fastened to the 
robe strap. When the luggage was 
loaded in the car, this cover, snapped 
and fastened in place, effectually pro- 
tected the load and that part of the 
car from dust and rain, regardless of 
the position of the car top. 

The Pilot took his place at the 
wheel. Charlie Bliss climbed in and 
settled down on the remaining por- 
tion of the front seat. Clark unsnap- 
ped the dust protector on one side, 
and found roomy comfort on the rear 
seat; then he placed hjis distance 
glasses on his nose and assumed the 
role of "Observer." Godspeeds and 
goodbyes were exchanged, the engine 
turned, and at 6:20 in the morning, 
Wednesday, August 24, 1918, the car 
rolled out onto Cortland street, its 
nose toward the Dudley creek bridge, 
and we were off for the long drive. 

THE WATERING TROUGH 

Crossing the bridge and turning 
westward on the "Dugway," we had 
to stop, of course, when we reached 
the spring and "watering trough," 
just beyond the village limits. It has 
been a familiar spot to about every 
resident in the town of Lisle in the 
past 50 or 75 years or more. Here we 

21 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

filled our thermos bottles and drank' 
to the success of the present adven- 
ture. 

"Trough" seems to have been some- 
what of a misnomer in a description 
of this watering place. Today there 
is a rather massive concrete basin or 
reservoir there, into which the water 
is conducted from the spring through 
afi iron pipe. When we boys were 
youngsters, the "trough" was made 
from the half of one of the big hogs- 
heads or casks in which raw hides 
were shipped to the tannery at York- 
shire. The water was conducted to 
this tub through a simple trough made 
of two boards nailed together. The 
overflow from the tub and spring, by 
flooding the road for the most part, 
found its way into the little trout 
brook that flowed through the field 
by the roadside to the mill-pond below. 

DUDLEY'S MILLS 

And then we passed Edwards' Mill 
where, in the continued possession of 
the same family and in present use, 
yet stands the only one remaining, of 
a dozen or fifteen sawmills utilizing 
water power along the water courses 
in the town of Lisle. All were once in 
active operation in the manufacture 

22 



THE YORKSHIRE OF OLD 

df lumber from the hemlock forests 
that covered these hills. As it is, an 
auxiliary engine has been installed in 
this mill, for service when there is 
no "head" in the mill-pond; and this is 
much of the time, for old Dudley has 
ceased to be dependable in these lat- 
ter days. 

Just a little farther up the creek we 
passed through Manningville, once a 
very busy little community, with two 
sawmills, a plaining mill and a wool- 
en mill running to capacity in those 
busy timber-slashing times; and not 
a stick or stone remains in place to 
Ox the sites of them. 

From Manningville, it was only a 
matter of three or four minutes to 
roll into Yorkshire — Center Lisle in 
the P. O. directory. Its Yorkshire day;s 
were the days of its glory. There were 
sawmills, plaining mills, a sash, blind 
and door factory, a carriage factory 
and a cabinet shop. Much fine, sub- 
stantial, old furniture was made 
there then. 

THE YORKSHIRE OF OLD 

The principal asset was a great 
tannery, employing many men and 
boys, year in and out. Cask after cask 
of raw sheep skins were received in 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

an almost daily procession, shipped 
from Australia, across two oceans to 
New York; transhipped by rail to 
Lisle, they were hauled to the tan- 
nery by teams. At the tannery the 
tanned and roughly finished product 
was packed in great, canvass-covered 
bales and sent back to New York to 
be further finished, so the sophisticat- 
ed old Australian buck would not be 
able to distinguish his own hide from 
that of the veriest kid or softest calf. 

These many mills have disappeared. 
The great tannery, long since shut 
down, is now being razed and sal- 
vaged for the useable material to be 
found in its structure. And yet, do 
you know, out of the little village of 
Yorkshire came the Smith boys, Le- 
roy, Lyman C, Wilbert, Monroe and 
Hurlbert. 

From wrestling with the choppers 
in the hemlock timber, the sawyers 
at the mill, and the raftsmen and 
high water in the spring drive of 
manufactured lumber through the 
three rivers to tide-water, Leroy 
Smith went over to Ithaca and lo- 
cated; and the sporting world was 
given the "Ithaca" gun. 

Lyman C. Smith went to Syracuse, 
and directly the "L # C. Smith" gun 

24 



THE YORKSHIRE OF OLD 

had achieved more than a national 
reputation. He interested himself (and 
an inventor) in typewriting machines 
at a time when there were but two 
or three sufficiently practical to be in 
use; and directly, the "Smith Pre- 
mier" appeared on the market. Then 
he disposed of the gun and the "Smith 
Premier" interests, and associated 
with him his brothers Wilbert, Mon- 
roe and Hurlbert in a new enterprise, 
and the "L. C. Smith & Brothers" 
visible writing machine came to the 
tore. 

But fifteen or twenty minutes from 
Lisle! And we had climbed the long 
hill from Yorkshire — looking back 
from the crest over the valley below 
and to the farm-marked hills to the 
north and to the west — and had 
coasted down by the old Franklin 
homestead, past the orchard which 
the Pilot had helped to set out when 
he was a mere boy; had passed the 
farms added to the original holding, 
and waved a morning salute to the 
farmer and his wife, who were evi- 
dently discussing the day's program 
on the kitchen porch of the new 
Franklin farm house. 



25 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 



OLD WAYS AND NEW 

Fifteen or twenty minutes! To 
hitch up a team and "drive to town" 
with the butter and eggs and other 
farm products for barter or sale, in 
the good, old-fashioned days o? our 
fathers and grandfathers, meant the 
loss of the half of a long day. Farm 
horses generally were not racers, and 
the country roads were far from be- 
ing speedways. 

Transportation was always a seri- 
ous proposition — is now. We are likely 
to overlook the fact, for the monment. 
that the railroads we now have, were 
not always with us. "Uncle Gardner" 
Livermore, one of the first settlers, if 
not the earliest, in this particular sec- 
tion, came from Massachusetts. With 
oxen and sleds for a means of trans- 
portation, he brought his family and 
household effects through in mid- 
winter. One can hardly imagine now, 
what a journey of that kind under 
such conditions must have been. 

The Pilot's grandfather, accompa- 
nied by Mrs. Franklin and their only 
son, Charles R., drove across the 
country with his belongings from Au- 



26 



A NEW FARM PRODUCT 

rora, in Cayuga county, 85 years ago. 
They first made their home in a log 
house en Popple Hill, later to locate 
in Cadwell Settlement. And the boy, 
Charles, was sent at times with his 
father's team, 65 or 70 miles to Syra- 
cuse, to load with salt and return. Af- 
ter the Chenango canal was put in op- 
eration, the source of supply was 
changed to Chenango Forks, reached 
over "the old salt road." 

A NEW FARM PRODUCT 

These, with the stage coach, were 
the common methods of land trans- 
portation in the earlier days, and are 
in marked contrast with the mode of* 
conveyance we were enjoying that 
early morning in August. And the 
contrast came pat at that time for 
the reason that H. H. Franklin, the 
head of the company that produces 
the car the Pilot was driving, is also, 
a Lisle boy, "grown up" as well as 
older, and was born and reared on 
the farm in Cadwell Settlement, we 
then were passing. So, you may ob- 
serve with the Observer that, in ad- 
dition to the dairy products and the 
livestock which have come from the 
Franklin farms for so many years, it 
may be true in an interrelated kind 



27 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

of way, that this farm that produced 
the producer, may claim the "Frank- 
lin car" as one of it products. 

Traveling by the way of East Berk- 
shire, we soon came out upon the 
new Owego road through Newark 
V alley, a town once of great local rep- 
utation because of its "trout ponds" 
and adjoining grounds where the 
country people from many miles 
around were wont to gather picnick- 
ing — and dancing, perhaps, for which 
provision was made; more of the 
"good, old times" that are no more. 

Comfortably speeding over an ex- 
cellent macadam road, we reached 
Owego, (where once was an Indian 
town with a similar name, Oghwaga). 
at a reasonably early hour in the 
morning. Without halting we turned 
westward over what has, since the 
War, been sometimes called the Lib- 
erty Highway. 

SUSQUEHANNA VALLEY 

We were riding over historic 
ground. W3 had driven down into the 
valley of the Susquehanna, a valley 
and a river which ftave figured mucn 
in history and romance. We were at 
Owego nee Oghwaga, where the joint 
contributions of the Owego and Cata- 



23 



SUSQUEHANNA VALLEY 

tonk creeks are poured into the Sus- 
quehanna. 

Ancient Oghwaga was one of the 
many substantially built and well lo- 
cated Indian towns scattered over 
that portion of New York dominated 
by the Iroquois Confederacy. It suf- 
fered the common fate of all the In- 
dian settlements along the line of 
march taken by General Sullivan's 
troops on the expedition of 1779. In 
fact, it was the purpose of the expe- 
dition to seek out these villages to 
destroy them and their stores of food 
and fields of corn and vegetables. So 
Oghwaga was burned and the corn 
and potatoes, cucumbers and melons, 
squash and turnips in the fields were 
destroyed — 139 years, less five days, 
before the Pilot and his party arrived 
on the scene and took up the west- 
ward trail. 

The splendid stretch of macadam 
we called a "trail," by easy grades 
and swinging curves, along the south- 
ern slope of the hills on the north err 
side of the valley, soon reached ar. 
altitude much above the town and 
the river flats. We rushed by a club 
house and park, poised on the verge 
of the dangerously steep hillside 
hedged in a tangle of trees and 

29 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

shrubbery, and came out into an un- 
obstructed view of the scene. Farms 
dotted with buildings, were marked 
off in great, rectangular fields by 
their fences; intersecting roadways 
afforded them communication; and 
farm teams and some early travelers 
were on their way. 

Glistening parallels marked lines of 
railroad traversing the length of the 
valley. The Erie and the Lehigh 
crowded the hill and one another, 
almost beneath us. Section hands 
were working on the roadbed, and 
among them were women, suitably 
dressed for the employment, and do- 
ing the work of men. These were war 
times. 

Through the valley the Susque- 
hanna traveled its sinuous course, 
collecting tribute from its tributa- 
ries all the way from Otsego Lake, and 
poured its flood into Chesapeake bay 
at the end of its 400 miles of meand- 
ering. Beyond the river a trail of 
smoke and steam marked the line of 
the Lackawanna, and back of all rose 
the distant background of mountain- 
ous hills. 



30 



"MOTHER OF SUFFRAGE' 



ESTHER MORRIS 

Observing a -woman in overalls, 
working in the section gang with the 
men, "doing a man's work for a man's 
pay," quickened a memory of Esther 
Morris. You have not heard of her? 

Out in Wyoming where the women 
have enjoyed the franchise and civil 
rights equally with men since 1869, 
Esther Morris is sometimes referred 
to as the "Mother of Woman's Suf- 
frage." She was almost born an Owe- 
go girl, somewhat more than WO 
years ago. Her grandfather was an 
officer under General Sullivan in the 
expedition of 1779. At the close of 
the war he was granted a tract of 
land near Owego. His granddaughter 
was born in the little village of Spen- 
cer, Tioga county, 12 or 15 miles 
northwest from Owego, and not much 
farther from ancient "Catharines- 
town." She was an orphan at 11 years. 

Esther was married at 28 to a civil 
engineer named Slack, employed on 
the Erie railroad, then under con- 
struction. Later he went to the Illi- 
nois Central, acquired some interests 
in Illinois, died and was survived by 

31 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

Mrs. Slack and their one son. In 1845 
Mrs. Slack married John Morris, a 
merchant in Peru, Ills. There were two 
tens by the second marriage. In 18 GD, 
Mr. and Mrs. Morris and the three 
boys went out to the frontier and 
settled at South Pass City, a mining 
town over in the middle western por- 
tion of the new Territory of Wyoming. 

In the first legislative assembly of 
Wyoming, in the fall of 1S69, John 
Bright, a member of the council, from 
South Pass City, fathered a woman's 
suffrage bill, which Esther Morris 
"mothered" in the lobby; and his 
work was so insistent and hers so 
persistent and effective, that the bill 
became an act, was approved by Gov- 
ernor Campbell and became a law. 
Mrs. Morris was one Billy Ftortune 
would describe as "an able minded 
lady." She lived to see the provision 
she had "mothered" in the first legis- 
lative assembly of a new territory, in- 
corporated in its constitution when 
that territory was admited to state- 
hood 20 years afterward. 

The panorama rushing past as the 
wheels of our car took the smooth 
road without a jar, was a swiftly 
changing one. Almost before we were 
aware of it, we had left the Susque- 

32 



ESTHER MORRIS 

hanna and its valley behind and were 
entering the valley through which 
the Chemung was flowing to its junc- 
tion with the larger stream at Tioga 
Point. 

AN OLD BATTLE FIELD 

As we were approaching Elmira, 
yet several miles distant, there sud- 
denly flashed into view a tall, grace- 
ful obelisk, glistening white in the 
sun and silhouetted high against the 
blue summer sky above a prominent 
hill at our right. This monument was 
erected, commemorative of the first 
battle fought by Sullivan's army in 
force, en its march against the In- 
dians in 1779. 

Butler's Rangers and His Indians to 
the number of about 700, of whom 500 
were aborigines, had chosen their po- 
sition at this point, erected breast* 
works of logs, dug rifle pits and loop- 
holed a log house standing here in 
the woods, for their defense. In course 
of the battle, Sullivan's men turned 
their enemy's flank on the hill above 
them and severely punished and 
routed, them. 

That night, after the battle, the 
Americans encamped on. the broad 
fiat near by, where the Indians had 



33 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

planted and cultivated 120 acres to 
corn, beans, potatoes, tutrnips" and 
other vegetables, and remained in 
camp until August 31st. when they 
left Newtown and marched on "Cath- 
arinestown," having first entirely de- 
stroyed the field of corn and vege- 
tables. 

The present Newtown lies at the 
foot of the hill surmounted by the 
sightly monument, and on the trail 
we were traveling. A granite marker 
at the roadside in the village, reminds 
the passer-by of the historical char- 
acter of the locality he has invaded. 
A fine driveway has been built from 
the highway up the sodded slope of 
the hill to a millitary park surround- 
ing the monument. On the first cen- 
tennial anniversary of the battle of 
Newtown, August 29, 1879, this mon- 
ument was dedicated with appropri- 
ate ceremonies. 

We more nearly passed by Elmira 
than passed through it, on our way; 
and that, without stopping. However, 
in passing, the Observer (observed 
that this city, also, draws on Revolu- 
tionary history and Indian romance 
for its beginning. Where Newtown 
creek pours its waters into the Che- 
mung river, once was Kanawlshalla; 

34 



PAINTED POST. 

where Kanawlshalla was Capt. John 
Reed built a fort in September, 1779, 
and it was called Fort Reed; and the 
site of old Fort Reed is the site of 
later Elmira. 

PAINTED POST. 

From Elmira the Pilot laid a route 
by Horseheads through Corning to 
Painted Post, in Steuben county. "The 
Man from Painted Post," was not a 
product of this town; but the origin 
if its name harks back to the Revo- 
lution and the Indian activities of that 
time. 

In the summer of 1779, we are as- 
sured, a detachment of Butler's Rang- 
ers under the Doyalist, McDonnel, 
and a considerable party of Indians 
under the Seneca, Chief Hiakatoo, 
returning from some serious encount- 
er, brought the young chieftain, Ron- 
ald Montour, son of the Indian Queen 
Catharine, of Catharinestown, so des- 
perately wounded that he presently 
died; and they buried him under the 
elms at the confluence of the Tioga 
and Cohocton rivers. 

Over this young chief's grave was 
planted a post, painted with various 
Indian symbols and devices, which 
stood undisturbed long after the coun- 



35 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

try had been settled by the whites. 
This monument was known through- 
out the Genesee country, and to this 
spot many chieftains and braves of 
the Six Nations made frequent pil- 
grimages. The white settlement lo- 
cated at this place, naturally took on 
the name by which the locality had 
long been known — Painted Post. 

Roland Montour was leader of the 
band of 40 Indians who fired upon 
General Sullivan's soldiers, from am- 
bush, near Chemung, August 13, 1779, 
wounding 12 and killing 8 officers and 
privates. McDonnel was with the Ran- 
gers at the battle of Newtown, on 
August 29, in whic*h both Rangers 
and Indians suffered defeat and rout. 

Instead of following the main Iro- 
quois trail up the Cohocton to Bath 
and across to Hornell, we went out 
over the highway through Addison to 
Jasper, and thence down to Canisteo 
and on to Hornell. Shortly before en- 
tering Canisteo, the car side-tracked 
to a shaded position on the bank of 
a shallow stream which, at one time 
or another, had been appropriated by 
some doughty millitary hero; or our 
road map was misleading. 

So be it, at noon we paused on the 



36 



CAN1STE0 VALLEY 

bank of "Col. Bill's creek," and ap- 
propriated to our own use a lunch 
prepared and boxed that morning for 
emergencies (the emergency having 
arisen) and washed it down with pure, 
cold water from the spring at the 
watering trough in the "Dugway" at 
Lisle, from our thermos bottles. And 
Shen to Canisteo. 

CANISTEO VALLEY. 

In the valley of the Canisteo, in the 
midst of its open flats and ancient 
meadows, once was an Indian village. 
Canisteo Castle. Here for a time and 
before she took up her abode at 
"Catharinestown," near the head of 
Seneca lake, was the home of Queen 
Catharine. Dong after that, and prior 
to the Revolution, Canisteo Castle 
fell into such bad repute that Sir 
William Johnson ordered its destruc- 
tion. This duty was assigned to Cap- 
tain (Andre) Montour, a brother of 
Queen Catharine, and his work was 
done so thoroughly well that the lo- 
cation was utterly abandoned and nev- 
er rebuilt by the Indians. 

In 1788,) Solomon Bennet, Uriah 
Stephens and others launched an ex- 
pedition for the exploration of the 
Canisteo with the view of effecting a 

37 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

settlement in its valley if the pros- 
pects were favorable. On September 
17, 1790, as a result of these investi- 
gations, Bennet and Stephens together 
with nine others associated with 
them, purchased a tract of 46,080 
acres of land, surveyed into two town- 
ships, each containing 23,040 acres, 
from Oliver Phelps of Canandaigua. 
This sale was "in consideration of 
Two thousand six hundred and sixty- 
six pounds, thirteen shillings and 
four pence, current money" of the 
State of New York. 

These townships were each divided 
into 12 parcels of equal area, and 
were distributed by lot to the asso- 
ciates, one parcel in each township to 
each man except Bennet, who, for 
satisfactory reasons, was given two 
in each township. 

One of the associates was John 
Stephens, latterly known as Col. John 
Stephens, a son of Uriah Stephens. 
His wife, Olive, was a sister of the 
father of the grandfather of the Pilot 
and the Observer. Col. John Stephen's 
lot in the "upper" or township 4, was 
lot 7; and did not particularly appeal 
to him as a farming proposition. 



38 



THE LADY'S GOWN 



AUNT OLIVE'S SILK DRESS. 

On the 9th of July, 1793, Col. John 
sold 1,600 acres of lot 7 to George 
Hornell, "in consideration of one hun- 
dred and eleven pounds lawful mon- 
ey of the State of New York" together 
with a silk dress for his wife, Aunt 
Olive! He retained his interest in the 
lower township, wherein was after- 
wards located the town of Canisteo, 
and made his home there. He lived to 
be 71 and died March 19, 1837; and 
his wife survived him and died Nov. 
6, 1848, at the age of 82 years and six 
months. Both were buried in the ceme- 
tery at the little village of Greenwood 
in the hills a few miles south of Can- 
isteo. 

On the day we passed through Can- 
isteo, the Stephens family annual re- 
union was on, and we were invited to 
tarry and join the party, but our 
schedule would not permit. 

Much of the town of Hornell, in- 
cluding railroad property, churches, 
schools, Federal building, Armory, 
Court house.and other public and pri- 
vate buildings, including one or two 
silk mills, was located on the 1,600 



39 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

acres sold to George Hornell for Aunt 
Olive's silk dress and 111 pounds in 
money. Can there be any psychological 
connection between the silk dress of 
125 years ago and the silk mills there 
today, 

A passing shower of but a few mo- 
ments' duration, laid the dust for us 
as we were taking on gas at Hornell; 
and from there we struck out over 
the hills by Wellsville, Belvidere and 
Friendship in Allegany county, and 
Cuba to Olean in Cattaraugus county. 
Great tanneries were established in 
Olean years ago before the mountain- 
ous hills and ridges among which we 
had been traveling, had been robbea 
of their forests; and hemlock bark 
was then corded up in great piles 
more noticeable than the buildings of 
the town, as viewed from passing 
trains. Now the forests have disap- 
peared, the bark has vanished, but the 
tanneries are here — and running. 

AT CHAUTAUQUA. 

Prom Olean we followed the trail 
to Salamanca, a town which the Ob- 
server recalls as the place where he 
was compelled to "change cars" for 
Kent, Ohio, from the Erie train on 
which lie had left Binghamton the 



40 



AT CHAUTAUQUA. 

midnight before, on his way to the 
western frontier forty years ago. From 
Salamanca we continued across the 
Allegany Indian reservation to the 
Randolphs, and thence over into 
Chautauqua county and down to 
Jamestown at the foot of the lake. 
And there we dined. 

The sun was nearing the western 
horizon as we drove out from James- 
town, along the eastern shore of 
Chautauqua lake, enjoying the in- 
creasing splendors of a growing sun- 
set, the beauties of the flashing gleams 
of light and color reflected from the 
wind^rippled surface of th,e water, 
nnd the delight of a moving picture of 
the western shore line with its little 
communities and villages and the 
Chautauqua in the midst of trees and 
shrubberj r , blending in the back- 
ground of undulating hills and illu- 
minated sky. And we rounded the 
head of the lake to Mayville. 

From Mayville the Pilot rushed us 
along through the growing twilight 
over the low divide which lies be- 
tween Chautauqua lake and Lake 
Erie, and brought us into Westfield at 
S o'clock, 13 hours and 40 minutes 
and 293 miles and a half from Dudley 

41 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

creek bridge in Lisle, that day. Here 
we lost very much of the Bliss of a 
splendid day by his very regretful, if 
not tearfully sad, farewell and de- 
parture for Dunkirk — by Trolley. 

THE WAYSIDE INN 

After Charlie Bliss had boarded his 
trolley car and rushed off to Dunkirk, 
and the Pilot had housed our car, and 
we had be^u assured bv the local inn 
Keeper tttai iie would 1&Re cure" ol 
us, we left our bags in the office and 
stepped out onto the streets to find 
our legs, after a day's non-use of them, 
and to have a glance at the town 
which the unserpented and de-adder- 
ized red juice <of the grape has made 
famous. 

When we returned a party of six 
motorists had just been "turned 
down" because the house was "full," 
and another man was hopelessly 
pleading for accommodations for a 
party; of a dozen and the clerk was 
phoning to a rooming house to ascer- 
tain if the party could be entertained 
there. This is just an indication of 
what the tourists are doing to the 
hotels. Suppose the cterk had forgot- 
ten his promise to us: The mere 
thought of it produced a chill. 

42 



THE WAYSIDE INN 

Oh, no, we had not been forgotten 
(and, too, no vacant space In tne 
house had been overlooked). Our ac- 
commodations were right off the 
office — same floor. We picked up our 
bags and hastened to settle on our 
claims before they could be surrepti- 
ously jumped. 

And this is a sample of what the 
hotelb some times do to the tourists. 
We found ourselves In a big, square 
room probably intended originally for 
a baggage or store room. The ceiling 
was high and grimey. The walls were 
bare and broken by doors only. With 
office partition stuff this store room 
had been subdivided into four box 
stalls, wide enough to take in a 
single bed and a plain, square-top 
stand at its head. There was an elec- 
tric drop light in each stall, and one 
central light near the ceiling high 
enough to throw its white glare into 
the tops of these stalls regardless — 
an all night illumination and irrita- 
tion. 

There was no carpet or rug on a 
cold, concrete floor calculated to send 
a man to bed with a chill and to oc- 
casion another upon his arising. We 
might have been lulled into a restful 
slumber by the music of the dripping 

43 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

water in the general lavatory adjoin- 
ing, and the gentle murmur of dis- 
tant voices in the office — a few yards 
away, if it had not been for that big 
light up against the ceiling beating 
into our stalls incessantly. 

HORACE BEAT US TO IT 

Horace Greeley beat us to West- 
field by about 85 years — and walked 
in at that. He was a young printer in 
the making, at Poultney, Vt., near his 
boyhood home. In 1S31 his father left 
Vermont, anticipating his son's sub- 
sequent advice to (other young men, 
'went west" and settled in the for- 
ests of Erie county, Pennsylvania, 
just over the State line and adjoin- 
ing Chautauqua county, N. Y. 

Greeley visited his people in Penn- 
sylvania several times during and 
after his apprenticeship in the Poult- 
ney printing office. There were no 
railroads in New York then and auto- 
mobiles had not been dreamed of. 
The trail he followed was a wet one — 
from Troy to Buffalo on a "line 
boat," navigating the Erie canal, "a 
cent and a half a mile and a mile and 
a half an hour!" 

Describing that trip in after years, 
he wrote, "the days passed slowly, 



AN EARLY START 

yet smoothly on those gilded arks, 
being enlivened by various sedentary 
games; but the nights were tedious 
beyond any sleeping car experience. 
At daybreak you were routed out of 
your shabby, shelf-like berth and 
driven on deck to swallow fog while 
the cabin was cleared of its beds and 
made ready for breakfast." 

From Buffalo the journey was con- 
tinued on "wretched little tubs" that 
did duty for steamboats on Lake Erie 
and Greeley left one at Dunkirk and 
"walked 20 miles to Westfield instead 
of keeping on by boat at a trifling 
charge," simply to avoid further pun- 
ishment of that kind. 

AN EARLY START 

There was no delay in our start the 
following morning because of over- 
sleeping. We were on our way at 7:30 
along a /me dirt road over which we 
were to reach the "Lake road" we 
had determined to travel that day; 
and we were soon driving through 
vineyards as, in Nebraska, one may 
drive through illimitable fields of 
corn. 

In the gray atmosphere of the morn- 
ing, the sky and foliage seemed to 



45 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

meet at our right; then the immedi- 
ate sky turned to water, and way out 
yonder, the water and sky merged 
save when a distant lake boat rode 
the sky-line, or the distant, trailing 
clouds lof steamer smoke, squarely 
cut on the bottom, floated above an 
unseen craft lying beneath the- hori- 
zon. 

To the left was an easy rise to the 
crest of a low divide, which directed 
the course of the running streams and 
decided the ultimate destination of 
local waters on their way to the seas. 
Thus, some were diverted into Lake 
Erie and through Lake Ontario and 
the St. Lawrence into the northern 
Atlantic. And yet, a Tittle way off, 
jess than a stone's throw, perhaps, 
ran a little brook in an increasing 
stream into Chautauqua lake; thence 
through its outlet into the Allegheny, 
the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers 
into the Gulf of Mexico, to mingle 
with the waters of the Gulf stream 
and again travel northward. 

It was a drive of but a little more 
than ten miles to the Pennsylvania 
State line; and a considerable detour 
added somewhat to the 21 or 22 miles 
more which ordinarily would have 

46 



A BLAZED TRAIL 

served to bring us to the city of Erie. 
The Pennsylvania roads were just 
fair dirt roads, not particularly well 
cared for; but they were then dry, 
if dusty, rather than wet and muddy. 
There is a great difference between 
the two conditions as we discovered 
some weeks later in traveling over 
the same roads. 

A BLAZED TRAIL 

The "Lake road" we were following 
was officially designated as the To- 
ledO'Cleveland^Buffalo trail, and its 
course had been blazed with a mono- 
gram, black on white, made up of 
three letters T. C and B so distorted 
and arranged as to enter into, and out- 
line, a triangular shield, with the 
three sides slightly curving outward. 
There were only 75 or 80 different 
trail markings in the portions of four 
states comprising the "district" 
through which we were passing; and 
their printed tabulation had all the 
appearance of a far western brand 
book. 

We did not fairly get into Erie, a 
lake port and a city, with a popula- 
tion of 72,000 or better; but we fol- 
lowed our trail in at the City Park 



47 



OVER BLAZED- TRAILS 

and directly out again without invad- 
ing the diown town district. A drive of 
about 20 miles carried us over the 
State line into Ohio at Conneaut — 
seen in passing as a village, a bridge, 
sn old church by the roadside, a 
woman at the vestry door, a succes- 
sion of dwellings, lawns, trees, red 
brick buildings, more trees, along a 
paved street over which we silently 
rolled — and out into the country a- 
gain. 

A drive of about 15 miles from Con- 
neaut brought us into Ashtabula, a 
city of 21,000 people, three railroads, 
two electric lines, a lake port near by 
and businss accordingly. Our trail 
crossed the high bridge over a deep 
gorge, and a few rods to cur left the 
railroads had bridged the same chasm. 
Then flashed a recollection of an old 
newspaper head-line, big, black and 
startling, "The Ashtabula Horror!" 
That was the caption of a newspaper 
account of one of the most terrible 
disasters then in the annals of rail- 
roads; and it was staged here. From 
the dizzy height of a railroad bridge 
which crossed this gorge, crashed 
the coaches crowded with people, 
down to the rocks below. The story 
need not be repeated now. Its details 

48 



A DISAPPOINTMENT 

have long since been forgotten and 
there are other thrills and horrors 
for today. 

HOT CHICKEN, NO? 

Another 15 miles or such a matter, 
and we were driving Into a neat, com- 
pact little town; and something sug- 
gested to the Pilot that we had eaten 
an early breakfast at Westfield that 
morning, and, paraphrasing the re- 
mark passed between the Governors 
of the two Carolinas, it was a long 
time between eats. Opportunely a 
black-lettered sign prominently dis- 
played on a corner dwelling ahead, 
carried the cheering announcement, 
"Hot Chicken Dinners." The car clock 
indicated the arrival of the hour, and 
this seemed to be the place. Having 
found the time and the place, we 
parked the car to look for the chicken. 

We entered and the Pilot asked the 
lone man we found in the outer room, 
"Can we get our dinners here?" He 
iiesitated, said he would "go and see," 
and he went. Directly he returned 
with the woman of the house, who 
informed us that dinner was not ready 
and that maybe she could serve us 
in half an hour. Our call seemed to 
have been out iof the usual, someway; 



4D 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

and the lady added the explanatory 
statement that she did not usually 
serve dinner before noon, and it was 
now only 11 o'clock! We had run out 
of "eastern time" into "central time," 
and lost an hour without sensing it. 
We had been on the road, let us say, 
five hours; but had only traveled 
four hours into the day. 

We did not wait for the hot chick- 
en, but pressed on until we had 
crossed the Grand river and followed 
the brick pavement into Palnesville. 
And the Observer suggested to the 
Pilot as they rolled along Main street, 
with diuie regard for the traffic rules, 
that when their gr. gr. grandfather 
built his little log house on the site 
of the old Indian town, Chonodote, 
(Peach Town, destroyed by Sullivan's 
soldiers ten years before) and the 
present site of Aurora, on the east 
shore of Cayuga lake, in October, 
1789, all the white men in what is now 
Cayuga county, N. Y., were present 
and helped in the work; and one of 
these men was Ed ware Paine, who 
afterwards settled at Painesville, 
Ohio, about 120 years ago. 



50 



BY THE LAKE SHORE 

The distance is about 30 miles from 
Painesville to Cleveland, but the trav- 
eler runs upon Euclid avenue at Wil- 
loughby, 20 miles east of the big 
town; and from that point our course 
was over Eiuiclid right into the heart 
of the city. 

Our first call in Cleveland was at 
the "Franklin" branch, to take on 
gas and oil and to make a personal 
call upon the resident manager, C. S. 
Carris, formerly of Syracuse, in 1904, 
he accompanied L. L. Whitman on 
the trip from San Francisco to New 
York in a 10 H. P. "Franklin" car of 
that time. It was a record breaker 
all right; but to compare that car 
with the "Franklin" touring car the 
Pilot was driving was to smile. 

At Cleveland, fior the first time 
during the day, we approached the 
lake shore. All day long the lake had 
been shimmering in the distance; 
but upon resuming our drive at Cleve- 
land, the trail took us down to the 
water front where not only could we 
see the shipping in the harbor, but 
we could see ships in the making as 
well, and passed by several great 
steel hulls in course vi completion. 

Leaving Cleveland we followed the 
T-C-B trail out for a few miles to 

51 



OVER BLAZEO TRAILS 

Rocky Creek, from whence we con- 
tinued along the lake side through 
Loraine, Vermillion and Huron, hug- 
ging the lake shore more closely, into 
Sandusky, Ohio. 

We had traveled 217 miles, all day 
long within sight of Lake Erie; and 
from Cleveland on, in many places, 
we could hear the wash of the waves 
upon the beach. We had passd 
through vineyards and grain-fields, 
and fields of diversified farm crops, 
including tobacco, also. We had driv- 
en through many wefl kept villages 
and towns and several cities; but 
two of the latter, Cleveland with 
G74,000 and Erie with 72,000, much 
exceeded 20,000 population. Our trail 
had averaged good; and, in Ohio, for 
the most part, it was excellent. We 
had experienced a delightful day and 
an enjoyable drive. At the end of it, 
we had found good hotel accommo- 
dations, housed our car — and dined. 

LAKE ERIE, ADIOS! 

At Sandusky, after dining, the Pilot 
and Observer sauntered out from the 
hotel, turned their backs to the little 
park o?»™*ite, and drifted down to 
the water front three or four blocks 



52 



LAKE ERIE, AOIOS! 

away. There, from a bench on the 
pier, they watched the play of the 
fading sunlight upon an almost wave- 
less bay. 

Directly an excursion boat arrived 
from Cedar Point, a pleasure resort 
not far away, and tied up to the dock, 
churning the water and sending the 
resulting waves lapping against the 
pier and swashing along the beach. 
Some hundreds of people, young and 
old of both sexes and of various na- 
tionalities, were poured out upon the 
dock and soon lost in the city. 

Sandusky is a city of 20,000 popula- 
tion, the county seat of Erie county, 
Ohio, and a lake port on Sandusky 
bay. Into this bay flows Sandusky riv- 
er after crossing Sandusky county 
which adjoins Brie county on the 
west. Each of these counties abuts on 
the bay. 

Traders with the Indians had 
reached the present site of Sandusky 
in 1749, and a fort was erected there, 
as was the custom at frontier trad- 
ing posts. This fort was destroyed by 
the Wyandot Indians in 1763, during 
the general Indian uprising incited by 
the Ottawa Chieftain, Pontiac, and 
sometimes referred to as "Pontiac's 
War." The permanent settlement of 

53 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

Sandusky as a town, dates from 1817. 

Lying out in Lake Erie, en the 
American side of the national bound- 
ary, north and northwest from San- 
dusky, are a number of islands, one 
of which is known as South Bass. Off 
this island, Commodore Perry won 
his great naval victory over the Brit- 
ish in the battle of Put in Bay, in 1813. 

We were off the next morning 
(Aug. 16), at 7:30 and drove directly 
to Fremont, the county seat of San- 
dusky county; thus breaking away 
from the shore line of the lake we 
had followed so many miles, and 
driving out through farm lands and 
smaller towns of the interior. 

Some distance out from Fremont, 
we ran upon a long, straight stretch 
of road over which, in the distance, 
approached a trailing cloud of dust. 
As we advanced we entered upon a 
section of the highway which was 
being regraded and otherwise im- 
proved, and upon this we met a fleet 
c/f probably 75 big, powerful military 
automobiles sailing along regardless. 
They were just out of the factory, 
powerful passenger carrying cars, fin- 
ished in khaki color, top, body and 
running gear, and manned by a de- 
tachment of soldiers accompanied by 

54 



ON THE MAUMEE RIVER 

officers. A forceful reminder of a 
world's upheaval was that dust-rais- 
ing procession there in the midst of 
rural quiet and peace. 

From Fremont our course was 
through Woodville, Pemberville ana 
Scotch Ridge to Bowling Green. That 
name, Bowling Green, has a real spor- 
ty sound; and one naturally associ- 
ates it with the blue grass region of 
Kentucky, the thoroughbreds reared 
there, and sweepstakes, the derby and 
things. This Ohio town, however, is 
one of six or seven others of the name 
and falls about 4,000 people short of 
the Kentucky mark, but it is the 
county seat of Wood county. 

ON THE MAUMEE RIVER 

At the outskirts of Bowling Green, 
as we were leaving, to relieve his 
mind of any doubt as to the wisdom 
of his selection of roads, the Pilot 
inquired of a gentleman apparently 
at his own home and to the manor 
born, if we were on the right road to 
Napoleon. He was assured that we 
were for about three miles out, when 
we should "turn to the left and follow 
the river right down the valley to the 
town." 

Mile after mile we steadily forged 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

ahead over the roads indicated, eager- 
ly scanning the landscape for the 
shimmer of some river to follow 
"right down the valley to the town — 
hut never a shimmer. About this time 
we came up with an elderly gentle- 
man and his consort, driving a road- 
ster flying a Massachusetts pennant. 
They had halted at the cross roads in 
douot us to me proper direction for 
them to proceed. We were told they 
were "out for Bryan," (nothing po- 
litical, however), which place we also, 
aimed to reach and pass in course of 
the day. 

They were in doubt and the Pilot 
was not altogether sure; but he offered 
to drive on to a farm house a little 
distance ahead, on the road we had 
been traveling, make inquiry of the 
people there and "wig wag" the re- 
sult, so to speak. We drove en, hunted 
up the farmer and signalled the 
course to the elderly party from Mass- 
achusetts. Before we could regain our 
car and get under way, the old gen- 
tleman had turned on "full speed 
ahead" and passed, in a rather thank- 
Jess sort of a way enveloping us in a 
cloud of dust; all of which, the Pilot 
was moved to suggest, was far from 
being ladylike. 

56 



SLICK COUNTRY ROADS 

A few moments afterward, however, 
the Pilot had placed Massachusetts 
in its proper relative position on the 
map, on the east side of New York 
instead of at the west; and soon dis- 
covered the lost Maumee river, which 
we seemed to have been following 
down its valley — at a distance — des- 
pite our doubts and fears. At noon 
we drove into Napoleon, the seat of 
Maumee county, and a town of 4,000 
people. We came upon a peculiar 
juxtaposition of historical names 
there. We were in Napoleon, dined at 
the Wellington hotel, and a little later 
in the afternoon, passed through Wat- 
erloo, just over the line, in Indiana. 

SLICK COUNTRY ROADS 

The morning had been delightful 
and the highways (we were traveling 
along the "other ways") had been 
fairly good into Napoleon; but be- 
came less satisfactory after we had 
left that town and the valley of the 
Maumee on our way to Bryan. It had 
already been raining some when, at 
other cross roads, (for we seemed to 
intersect a north and south road at 
every section corner) : we came upon 
a party of two young men traveling 
from New York City enroute to Chi- 

57 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

cago, up against a great big doubt as 
to the proper highway to follow. In 
addition to that doubt, they were not 
very sure in the management of their 
car. 

We were upon a newly worked, well 
crowned, but ungraveled roadway up- 
on which the rain had recently fallen. 
Old lumbermen may talk about a 
greased skid way! Nothing could have 
been slicker than the road upon which 
we left these two young men, after tell- 
ing them we were traveling Chicago- 
ward ourselves as far as Bryan, un- 
less it might have been the piece of 
road the Pilot headed onto a few mo- 
ments later. 

That road must have been worked 
and crowned and rolled and polished 
off just a few minutes before the rain 
fell, and it was innocent of a rut or 
wheel track until our car struck it. 
You can't imagine the attraction the 
ditches had for that car, and the ef- 
fort required of the Pilot to hold it 
astride the center line until we 
reached the next corner and another 
farm house, where we stopped for 
information. 

Before the Observer had reached 
the gateway, the good housewife had 
observed the halted car and appeared 



58 



SOUTH BEND, INDIANA 

on the front porch. She answered the 
query: "Isn't there a good road near 
here, somewhtere, into Bryan?" by 
saying: "Yes, there is. Go right down 
the road to the second corner and 
you'll come to the stone; and you'll 
turned to the right and follow the 
stone right mto Bryan." We followed 
directions and found a splendid 
crushed stone road, as smooth and 
firm as good macadam, through to 
Bryan. 

SOUTH BEND, INDIANA 

From Bryan, we proceeded over 
improving roadways into Indiana, 
through Waterloo and Kendalville to 
Ligonier over the National Parks 
Transcontinental Highway. At Ligon- 
ier this trail with the long name 
merged in the Lincoln Highway, 
through Goshen and Elkhart, to South 
Bend, Indiana. Over this section of the 
highway we enjoyed traveling along 
great stretches, mile after mile, of 
brick and concrete pavements; and 
arrived at our hotel quarters that 
evening at 7 o'clock, after having 
driven 231 miles, many of which were 
run over roads not at all provocative 
of any breach of the local speed laws. 

South Bend is a city of 65,000 popu- 

59 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

lation, occupying a site upon which 
Pierre Navarre built his little log 
cabin in 1820. The city is located on 
the St. Joseph river, which empties 
into Lake Michigan at St. Joseph, 
Mich. A great Roman Catholic educa- 
tional institution, Notre Dame, found- 
ed in 1843 by Father Sorin, is located 
at South Bend; and, of many, three 
great industrial enterprises carry the 
city's name around the world — the 
Studebaker company, the Oliver plow 
company and the Singer sewing ma- 
chine company. 

The campaign for war loans and 
war work funds was on, and even as 
we drove up to the hotel to take off 
our personal luggage for the night, 
great crowds were gathering, called 
by an open air program to be put 
on the street near by. 

A parade and concert by the Jack- 
ies' Band and a detachment from the 
naval reserve camp at Chicago; two 
flat) cars camouflaged to represent 
the upper works of a submarine, 
standing on the trolley tracks in front 
of the Court House, and some open 
air talks made from the deck of the 
submarine by men in uniform, in sup- 
port of the drive for funds, were the 
center of attraction around which 



60 



THE FOURTH DAY. 

thousands of people were massed in 
the streets and remained until the 
last speech was delivered. It was an 
orderly, interested crowd of earnest 
people, but effectually blocked all 
street traffic in that vicinity far into 
the evening. 

THE FOURTH DAY. 

On the following morning the Pilot 
took the car to an estalishment de- 
voted to cleansing dirty automobiles 
and restoring them to their previous 
self-respect and luster, there to have 
the Ohio clay and some other soil 
removed which we had brought into 
South Bend the night before. And it 
was a queer bunch we found at that 
wash house. 

Two washers were busy — one on 
our car. A visitor, a mutual acquain- 
tance evidently, was occupying a 
wooden chair conveniently near. The 
three of them, apparently more or 
less old horsemen, were discussing 
the entry lists, the odds, and the 
published telegraphic reports of the 
previous day's races, as the washing 
of the horseless carriages proceeded. 
The Pilot, once more than less inter- 
ested in horse-flesh himself, set in 



61 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

the conversational game and seemed 
to enjoy it. 

It developed then that the man 
working on our "Franklin" was in 
Studebaker's employ some years ago 
when that wealthy manufacturer 
maintained a full stable and drove 
blooded horses and fine carriages 
galore. He dwelt upon the particular 
attention and painstaking cajre he 
was required to give to the carriages 
under his supervision — the same kind 
of care and attention he was giving 
to our car at this time, of course! 
Then came the big touring cars, the 
Hmosines, the town cars, sedans and 
coupes and the stables dwindled away. 

That morning, although the man 
did not say so in so many words, it 
was quite evident that he looked upon 
his job in hand from very much the 
same view point as that of the Union 
Pacific locomotive engineer who was 
taken off his engine and detailed to 
drive the first gasoline-motored com- 
bination coach from the factory at 
Omaha through to the coast under 
its own power, for use on the S .P. 
He said to a fellow engineer whom 
he met in the Cheyenne yards on the 
way: "For the last 18 years I have 
been driving a locomotive on the 



62 



ALONG THE ILLINOIS 

main line, and see what I have come 
to now." 

At ten o'clock that forenoon, the Pi- 
lot swung his car out on the Lincoln 
Highway, setting his coiurse through 
Valpariso, a university town 50 miles 
away, and the little village of Dyer, 
the last "station" in Indiana; then on 
to Chicago Heights, a manufacturing 
town of 20,000 people in southern 
Cook county, Illinois. At this point a 
branch of the Lincoln Highway ex- 
tends north to Chicago and thence 
westerly, and another continues west 
to Joliet and thence northerly to Gene- 
va where it intersects the Highway 
running westward from Chicago. 

ALONG THE ILLINOIS. 

We pushed on to Joliet, located on 
the Desplaines river, perpetuating the 
name of Louis Joliet, the old French 
pioneer, who was in this region 156 
years ago. Joliet has a population of 
5,500 people, exclusive of the Illinois 
State Penitentiary located there, 
which is recommended as "one of the 
oldest and best known institutions of 
the kind in the country." We did not 
tarry there. 

From Joliet we drove on through 
the village of Minooka to Morris. It 

63 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

is the county seat of Grundy (!) 
county, has a population of 4,500 peo- 
ple and is said to have been located 
on the site of an old Indian village. 
An Indian cedar pole (recall the 
"painted post?") marks the grave of 
Chief Nequette, and in a cemetery a 
little way from town, a granite boulder 
serves as a monument to Shabbona, 
friend of many white men during the 
Black Hawk war. 

From Morris a drive of 23 miles 
brought us to Ottawa, a city of 15,000 
people, county seat of LaSalle county 
and located at the confluence of the 
Fox and Illinois rivers. Arriving at 6 
o'clock that evening, we had traveled 
154 miles in our short day's drive. 

The day, however, had developed 
marked changes in agricultural con- 
ditions. The deep soil and recent co- 
pious rains, while they had been hard 
on the road-faring man, had produced 
wonderful crops in northwestern In- 
diana and thus far in Illinois. We 
passed splendid fields of oats and corn, 
but with a smaller acreage and lesser 
yield of wheat than we had seen in 
Ohio and north eastern Indiana. There 
were frequent fields of clover grown 
and ripening for seed, and many 
fields of mint. Vegetation was luxuri- 



C4 



THE FIFTH DAY 

ant and the crops promised wonderful 
things. 

It was the close of the week and we 
were four days and 895 miles from 
the Dudley creek bridge in Lisle. We 
were pleasantly quartered in a com- 
fortable hotel, too; and yet, the Pilot 
had begun to worry because he had 
not seen a single watering trough 
since we left New York state. 

THE FIFTH DAY. 

On Sunday morning, August 19th, 
last, at 8 o'clock, the Pilot brought 
his car around to the hotel for a start 
over the course calculated to bring us 
to the Mississippi river at Davenport, 
Iowa, with Princeton, Ills., as an im- 
mediate objective. 

On the way, between Ottawa and 
LaSalle, and about five miles out from 
Ottawa, is located the Starved Rock 
State park, including a tract of about 
900 acres of rough, wild and broken 
terrain just as nature had formed it 
during countless ages past. 

This park lies on the south side of 
the Illinois river, and takes its desig- 
nation from the name given to a mon- 
umental mass of sandstone within 
its limits, which rises almost perpen- 
dicularly from the waters of the river 



€5 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

to a sheer height of 157 feet. From the 
ground at its base the sides rise ab- 
ruptly, furrowed and seamed under 
the storms of ages, and in which have 
taken a firm hold, the roots of much 
shrubbery and many trees. 

Starved Rock is a historical land- 
mark. It not only perpetuates the sto- 
ry of a sanguinary conflict in its Im- 
mediate vicinity, but it harks back to 
the time of the transfer of sovereignty 
over the Canadas from the French to 
the British, as a result of the French 
and Indian war terminated shortly 
prior to the American Revolution. 

Captain Rogers, of New Hampshire, 
and a force of 200 Rangers, embarked 
in 15 whale boats, were sent out from 
Fort Niagara to take posession of the 
western frontier forts of the French, 
the formal surrender of which, had not 
been effected, and where, in conse- 
quence, the French colors were yet 
flying. 

Early in November, 1761, Captain 
Rogers and his command reached 
Cleveland, a point never before 
reached by the British soldiers. Here 
he was met by a deputation of Indians 
in the name of Chief Pontiac who per- 
sonally appeared later in the day, to 
demand a reason for Captain Rogers' 

C6 



SIEGE OF DETROIT 

visit. He was informed of the result 
of the war between the French and 
Indians on one side and the British, 
that the French had ceded all Canada 
to the British, and that he was on 
his way to take over Fort Detroit. 

Pontiac disappeared, and Captain 
Rogers and his rangers continued 
their voyage, reached Fort Detroit, 
took possession, and replaced the 
French colors with the British flag. 
He received the allegiance of the Can- 
adian settlers in the neighborhood; 
but where the French, through the 
offices of the Church missions and 
by reason of a liberal government pol- 
icy in dealings with the Indians, found 
but little trouble and made many 
friends, the harsher British policy 
soon made the Indians restless and 
dissatisfied. 

SIEGE OF DETROIT 

Pontiac was the son of an Ottawa 
father and an Ojibwa mother. He be- 
came an Ottawa chieftian whose au- 
thority was recognized by several 
other tribes. He was a member of a 
magic Indian cult and accredited with 
more than human powers by the su- 
perstitious red men. In May, 1762 he 
called a council of the tribes to be 



67 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

held at a point on the Ecorces river, 
not far removed from Detroit; and 
the result of that council was a two- 
years war which swept through the 
western wilderness from Detroit al- 
most into Fort Niagara, and along the 
Ohio into Pennsylvania. It has been 
variously referred to as Pontiac's Con- 
spiracy, Pontiac's Rebellion and be- 
gan in Pontiac's Siege of Detroit. 

Having failed in an attempt to carry 
the Fort by assault, Pontiac invested 
it and laid siege against it, and that 
investment was continued and con- 
voys with men and supplies for the 
garrison were destroyed; but a con- 
siderable number of men and a quan- 
tity of supplies eventually were 
brought through, although not suffi- 
cient to warrant taking the offensive 
against the besiegers. 

Leaving the vicinity of Fort De- 
troit, Pontiac with 400 of his warriors, 
set out through the wilderness, ex- 
citing the tribes to further participa- 
tion in the revolt, and eventually 
reached Fort Chartres on the Missis- 
sippi, from the commander of which 
(St. Ange), he hoped to receive some 
assurance of French co-operation. In 
this he was bitterly disappointed and 
in anger, left the presence of his erst- 



PONTIAC'S UNDOING 

while friend, and with his warriors, 
camped for the night outside the fort. 

In the meantime, Pontiac's propo- 
ganda was spread among the tribes 
throughout the forests east of the 
Mississippi and north of the Ohio, and 
the revolt was meeting with such suc- 
cess that there was not a fort flying 
a British flag between Fort Niagara 
and Mackinaw other than Fort De- 
troit, in the north and Forts Ligonier 
and Pitt in western Pennsylvania. 

Pontiac even went so far as to send 
his messengers down the Mississippi, 
rousing and enlisting the tribes on 
either side, in his grand scheme for 
saving the red men from extermina- 
tion. These messengers went as far 
south as New Orleans where they had 
an interview with the French gover- 
nor in Pontiac's behalf; and he told 
them that Pontiac must not look for 
any assistance from the French as 
they had made peace with the English. 

PONTIAC'S UNDOING 

The position taken by the French 
Governor of New Orleans, when 
brought to his knowledge by his mes- 
sengers, completed Pontiac's discom- 
fiture; for his appeal to the tribes had 
been accompanied by a promise of aid 

69 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

by the French, and only by making 
this promise good, could he hold his 
partisans to his cause. Unable to do 
this, he was forced to abandoned his 
long cherished plan; and he yielded 
to the inevitable, returned to Detroit 
and accepted the offer of peace. 

In 1769, Pontiac visited Fort St. 
Louis, then commanded by St. Ange, 
formerly in command at Fort Chartres, 
and while there the Illinois Indians 
were indulging in some kind of festiv- 
ities on the opposite side of the river. 
The commandant urged the Ottawa 
chieftain not to go over, but Pontiac 
ignored the advice and went across to 
the other side. He went into the forest 
to perform some mystic rite of his 
cult, and he was steathily followed by 
another Indian who had been hired by 
a British trader to assassinate the 
chief, for a barrel of whiskey. As 
Pontiac was kneeling upon the ground 
building a little fire of twigs, the 
hired assassin sank his tomahawk in- 
to his victim's scull, killing him in- 
stantly. 

Pontiac's body lay in a pool of 
blood where he fell, until St. Ange 
came over from Fort St. Louis and 
claimed it. He gave the murdered 
chieftain z. warrior's burial, with niili- 



70 



PONTIAC'S UNDOING 

tary honors, just outside the fort, and 
while no monument marked his rest- 
ing place, the city of St. Louis has 
grown into its present greatness over 
his dust. 

The Illinois Indians defended the 
act of the assassin and Pontiac's par- 
tisans entered upon a war of extermi- 
nation against them, from which very 
few of that tribe escaped with their 
lives. 

At Starved Rock, a remnant of the 
Illinois tribe found refuge from the 
Pottawatamies, who had recognized 
Pontiac's authority, on the top of that 
great pile of sandstone, where, sur- 
rounded by a relentless foe, and with- 
out a sufficient supply of food and 
water, their place of safety proved to 
be a death trap for starved warriors, 
their women and children. And the 
assassination of Pontiac was avenged. 

This park extends along the river 
about four miles, and on land a little 
beyond it and on the opposite side of 
the river, was located the Indian vil- 
lage of Kaskaskia in 1672; and the 
first mission founded in Illinois was 
established at Kaskaskia in 1675. 
Here at Starved Rock was once erect- 
ed a Port St. Louis as a part of the 
foundation of a new French Empire, 

71 



OVER BLAZED. TRAILS 

by LaSalle and Tonti; but it was a- 
bandoned by the French after the 
assassination of LaSalle. 

A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY 

Six miles west of Starved Rock we 
drove into LaSalle, a town of 12,000 
people, in which is located a zinc roll- 
ing mill claimed to be the oldest and 
largest in the world. Here also were 
located the German-American Port- 
land Cement works, so called before 
the war, but changed by the exigen- 
cies of war times into the LaSalle 
Portland Cement company. The day 
after we passed through LaSalle, A. 
Mitchell Palmer, alien property cus- 
todian, took over the plant of this 
company, doing an annual business of 
$3,000,000, so the telegraphic reports 
of the day announced. LaSalle is also 
an important coal mining point. 

Peru, Illinois, with a population of 
8.000, adjoins LaSalle on the west. It 
is located on the north bank of the 
Illinois river at the junction with that 
river, of the Illinois and Michigan ca- 
nal connecting the river at this point 
with Lake Michigan at Chicago. River 
steamers navigate the Illinois river as 
far up as Peru, in all its stages. And 
this is the town where Esther Morris 



72 



A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY 

married lier husband, John Morris, 
who was a merchant here, in 1845; 
and from which town the family re- 
moved to South Pass City, Wyoming 
Territory, in 1869, where she came to 
be known as the "Mother of Woman's 
Suffrage." 

Passing directly through Peru, 
Spring Valley and Seatonville, we 
drove into Princeton, the county seat 
of Bureau county, just as the good 
people of the town had set out for the 
morning services at church. Rain 
had been a daily visitor in this sec- 
tion for about a week and the church- 
going people were carrying umbrellas 
that morning. 

When we referred to this town as 
our "immediate objective," and named 
it "Princeton, Ills.," we should have 
omitted a comma and a period for 
there proved to be no abbreviation of 
the ills we found at Princeton, ana 
the conditions there prompted the 
Pilot to look upon the proposed route 
to Davenport with disfavor and to 
abandon that plan. 

We were advised to go north to 
Sterling and pick up the Lincoln High- 
way again. This we determined to do 
and immediately started out not to do 
it; for, without taking note of the 

73 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

points of the compass, we floundered 
out into a sea of mud which we navi- 
gated several miles — long, deep, car- 
wrenching, soul-wracking miles of 
black mud which the wheels brought 
up by the bucket-full and deposited in 
most any old place save in the body of 
the car. 

Two men driving a light buggy 
over the sod at the roadside, told us 
that "this kind o' goin' " reached out 
ahead of us 12 or 14 miles that they 
knew of, and they presumed it con- 
tinued beyond. After struggling along 
for a while, we finally reached a piece 
of comparatively firm sod on a higher 
and dryer elevation in front of a farm 
house; and upon this we crawled out 
of the mud to renew the engine oil 
supply. While we were thus engaged, 
the farmer and his man, come out to 
the fence and informed us that this 
sea of mud extended for miles and 
miles; and Pilot took advantage of 
the hard ground and firm sod in front 
of the place to make a turn, and head- 
ed back to Princeton for a new start 
and a cure for its "Ills." 

SEEKING A TRAIL 

The good people of Princeton were 
returning from Sunday school, when 

74 



SEEKING A TRAIL 

we arrived on our return, after having 
struggled through many unnecessary 
miles of mud and wasting some valua- 
ble time "off the road." 

In due time and without any pun- 
ishment comparable with what we had 
already taken, we drove into Rock 
Falls and across the river to Sterling, 
where we were glad to pick up a real 
"trail" again. We continued on with- 
out stopping, and without any fur- 
ther incident or accident we ap- 
proached the Mississippi river at Ful- 
ton, Illinois, crossed over the high 
bridge to Lyons, Iowa, and a few mo- 
ments later were at a good hotel in 
Clinton, for dinner and the night. The 
record of our mud boat, for such the 
"Franklin" appeared tot be as we drove 
into the garage at Clinton, was 148 
miles for that "Sabbath day's jour- 
ney." 

Clinton, Iowa, is a very attractive 
city with a population of 26,000. Lyons, 
at the bridge-head, joins it on the 
north, and to the casual observer, the 
two towns appear as one. From the 
center of the bridge between Fulton 
and Lyons, looking to the north or to 
the south, one enjoys an intensely in- 
teresting and far view of the Father 
of Waters, river banks, bluffs, roll- 

75 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

ing prairies, modest hills, the towns 
with their color, the tilled fields, lux- 
uriant foliage and some woodland. 

At Clinton, along the river bank, 
the making of what promises to be- 
come a splendid public park has been 
well begun. The city has one or two 
other parks, fine streets and sightly 
public buildings and attractive and 
well-kept homes by scores. 

After having Sunday's accumulation 
of mud removed from the car, on Mon- 
day morning, August 19, at 10 o'clock, 
the Pilot resumed his seat at the 
wheel and rolled the car out on the 
trail for another day's drive, with 
some degree of confidence, for we 
had been promised an absence of mud 
after the first few miles out, and but 
little trouble under any circumstances. 

We soon ran into the hardened or 
hardening records of recent heavy 
going, and were interested in reading 
from the records of the troubles of 
this or that car; the fearful lurches 
and slides of the big fellow and the 
deep, wiggling trail of the small tire 
on the little fellow; the place where 
the ditch almlost got another — all 
sorts of adventures written on the 
drying mud. And here, of course we 
found prominently displayed the fa- 

75 



OUT OF THE MUD 

miliar sign, "Avoid Ruts and Be a 
Friend to Good Roads!" 

The Observer never really appre- 
ciated what a thoroughly consistent 
and enthusiastic 'Ifriend of good 
reads" the Pilot was, before he saw 
him that morning working the wheel 
back and forth and around unceas- 
ingly and with some mighty sudden 
jerks, in his sweat-starting struggle 
to carry out the appeal of that sign. 
Sometimes in spite of his struggles, 
the treacherous clay would crumble 
and down into the debths of the to-be- 
avoided rut the wheels would drop 
with a chug! And the expression on 
the Pilot's face — and lips — was evi- 
dence conclusive that he had not in- 
tentionly ignored the posted in- 
struction. 

OUT OF THE MUD 

However, we were soon past the re- 
minders of some body's troubles in 
the mud, and making good time over 
improving roads. We entered Cedar 
Rapids along its "First Avenue," 
which the Lincoln Highway utilized 
across the city; and a splendidly 
paved street and beautiful drive it was, 
indeed, in a city noted for fine pave- 
ments, excellent boulevards and nu- 



77 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

merous civic beauty spots. Cedar Rap- 
ids is located on the Red Cedar River 
and has a population of 35,000. 

From Cedar Rapids we pushed on 
to Marshalltown, the seat of Marshall 
county, with a population of 17,000, ar- 
riving there at 6 o'clock that evening 
after a drive of 179 miles. 

The wonderful crop showing, espec- 
ially as to corn and oats, which was 
noticeable in Illinois on the proceed- 
ing Saturday, was observable along 
the route across Illinois and into Iowa 
to Marshalltown. It was also observa- 
ble through Illinois that there had 
been so many recent replacements of 
old farm houses with new structures, 
together with other new farm build- 
ings, that newness seemed to be the 
rule and made a wonderful showing of 
rural prosperity. In Iowa we began to 
find these new farm houses in the 
building; and, parked around the 
house under construction, there gen- 
erally were three or four automobiles 
for the transportation of the carpen- 
ters from their work to their homes. 
Indeed, the automobile was as com- 
mon, and seemed to be considered as 
necessary an adjunct to the farm 
equipment, as the farm wagon — and 
they were not all "flivers." 



73 



THE SEVENTH DAY 



THE SEVENTH DAY 

Marshalltown, Iowa, is not an an- 
cient city. We are told that one Henry 
Anson first built his home there in 
1851, and that was the very beginning 
of the town. Ten or a dozen years la- 
ter quite a community must have cen- 
tered around the Anson home, for a 
thousand and more soldiers were sent 
from the town to support the Union in 
the War of the Rebellion. The Iowa 
State soldiers' home is located at 
Marshalltown now. 

In the course of the Mormon hegira 
from Nauvoo, a large party of Brigham 
Young's followers passed a winter at 
what is now called "Mormon Ridge," 
near the present city of Marshalltown ; 
and the severity of the winter and 
lack of food laid a heavy toll of lives 
upon them before they were able to 
resume their long trek. That, of course, 
was prior to Anson's location. 

As a matter of fact, one branch or 
schism of the Mormon church has its 
headquarters at Lamoni, Decatur coun- 
ty, Iowa, today. It is known as the 
"Reorganized Church of Christ of the 



79 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

Latter Day Saints, and claims to be 
one in succession to that founded by 
Joseph Smith. It is shown by govern- 
ment statistics to have 565 organiza- 
tions, 1,200 ministers and 58,941 mem- 
bers. There is a church of this schism 
in Brooklyn and another, of the Utah 
church, in New York. 

Perhaps it has not occurred to you 
that the Mormon church is a product 
of the Empire State. It is even so. Jo- 
seph Smith, the "Revelator," and 
founder of the church, was born in a 
little log house located upon the line 
between the towns of Royalton and 
Sharon, in Windsor county, Vermont, 
and in that part of the house actually 
in Sharon. The place was the home- 
stead of his mother's father, Solomon 
Mack. 

In 1815, the elder Smith removed to 
Palmyra in Wayne county, New York, 
and Joseph accompanied him. At the 
age of fifteen, he has been described 
as being and odd appearing lad, bare- 
footed and dressed in a tow frock and 
trousers; and he was then frequently 
engaged in finding hidden springs for 
the farmers upon their farms over in 
Seneca county. And at that age, ac- 
cording to his own statements, he had 
already entertained serious ideas con- 



80 



JOSEPH SMITH 

cerning a future state and experienced 
occasional "ecstacies." 

JOSEPH AND MORONI 

In 1823, when young Joseph was in 
one of these "ecstacies," the "Angel, 
Moroni" (the name has a familiar 
sound, but the spelling is strange) 
visited him and told him a number of 
things, among which was the state- 
ment that the American Indians were 
a remnant of Israel and an enlight- 
ened people when they first came over, 
possessing a knowledge of God and 
enjoying his favor; and that their 
pirophets and inspired writers had 
kept a record of their proceedings 
and everything, and these records had 
been safely deposited for subsequent 
discovery. If Joseph remained "faith- 
ful," he was to be the one to dig them 
up. 

On the following day, he and Moroni 
went out to the hill, "Cumorah" — at 
Palmyra, according to one statement, 
but at Manchester in an adjoining 
county, according to another — and the 
records were discovered to him, snug- 
ly stowed away in a stone chest, Moro- 
ni wouldn't let him have them at that 
time, biit held them back until some 
time in September, four years later, 

81 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

when he finally delivered them into 
Joseph's hands. 

The records were engraved in small, 
neatly cut characters on plates of 
metal resembling gold, 7x8 inches 
in size and "thinner than a sheet of 
tin." They were held by three rings 
passed through them at one edge, 
forming a book about six inches thick. 
With the record was furnished a pair 
of spectacles consisting of "two trans- 
parent stones, clear as crystal and set 
in two rims of a bow;" and they were 
called "Urim and Trummin." 

It is claimed by one local writer 
that after the bundle of plates and 
pair of crystal pebbles had been hand- 
ed over to Joseph Smith, he brought 
them into Seneca county, to the home 
of Peter Wilmer in the village of 
Fayette, and went to work with Urim 
and Trummin there; and as he an- 
nounced his translation from time to 
time, "in a strong baritone voice," his 
"scribe," Oliver Courdnay, put it in 
writing. 

About this time appeared a more 
modern "Angel" in the form of Mar- 
tin Harris, a farmer, who undertook 
to finance the publication of the Book 
of Mormon. A large edition was print- 
ed by an Ohio concern, Harris having 



82 



BRIGHAM YOUNG 

mortgaged his farm to raise the cash 
necessary to liquidate the bill. As a 
mere incident growing out of the 
transaction, we are told Harris lost his 
farm and his wife, too. 

The first Mormon church was organ- 
ized May 6, 1830, at the home of Peter 
Wilmer at Fayette, by Joseph Smith. 
There were seven members including 
the founder, as follows: Joseph Smith, 
"Revelator" and founder; Oliver 
Courdnay, the "scribe;" Hyrum Smith, 
brother of Joseph; Martin Harris, the 
financial "Angel;" Peter Wilmer, at 
whose home the Book of Mormon was 
prepared; Samuel H. Smith and David 
Wilmer. The first Mormon "confer- 
ence" was subsequently held on the 
shore of Cayuga lake. 

BRIGHAM YOUNG 

About this time Joseph Smith first 
met Brigham Young. He was one of 
five sons of John Young of Tyrone in 
Schuyler county, N. Y., and he often 
came over into Seneca county to help 
the farmers in their harvest fields; 
and he was admitted to the new 
church fellowship there. 

Some years later, after the killing of 
Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, 
by the mob at Nauvoo, Illinois, Brig- 



G3 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

ham Young was chosen Seer; and lie 
led his people into their western Zion. 
He was one of the foremost advocates 
of polygamy, and it is Insisted by the 
"Josephites," claiming more closely to 
follow the teachings of the founder of 
the church, that Brigham Young was 
the originator of the idea of counte- 
nancing and encouraging polygamy as 
a part of the church polity. 

Of course there is always some 
crepe hanger aching to spoil a good 
story, and there is no exception to the 
rule in this case. It is claimed that 
there is every reason to believe that a 
clergyman named Spaulding, wrote 
the Book of Mormon in 1812 or about 
that time; and that Joseph Smith 
having come into possession of this 
child of the Rev. Spaulding's imagina- 
tive mind, adopted it as his own, not 
legally perhaps, but very effectively, 
and passed it out as a new Revelation. 

Despite our Individual belief and 
opinions as to the origin of the Book 
of Mormon, the church which has been 
founded upon it, the founder and the 
early members who established it, the 
fact still remains that out of its early 
persecutions, hardships and suffer- 
ing to the extreme, the organization 
established by Joseph Smith and his 

84 . 



IOWA 

six followers nearly ninety years ago, 
has grown to a membership approach- 
ing half a million, within the United 
States, and prospered wonderfully. 

TRAVERSING IOWA 

We drove out of Marshalltown on 
the morning of our seventh day on the 
road, at 8:15, and continued our 
course westerly through the middle of 
Iowa. The State of Iowa is made up 
of nine tiers of counties extending 
easterly and westerly across the state, 
with great regularity save as to a few 
counties on the eastern side, along 
the Mississippi river. Our course ex- 
tended westerly through the fifth 
tier — counting from top or bottom- 
entirely across the state, save only 
one county, Monona. 

Traveling thus from Marshalltown, 
we passed through five county seats, 
Nevada, Boone, Jefferson and Deni- 
son in the fifth tier, and Logan in Har- 
rison county, through which we trav- 
eled on a southwesterly course from 
Denison to Missouri Valley. From the 
latter town we continued south to 
Council Bluffs. Aside from the latter 
city with its population of 30,700, and 
Boone with 11,000 people, these were 
all small towns averaging 2,600 in 

85 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

population, but, withal, live and thrif- 
ty community centers of a great ag- 
ricultural area. 

It was especially noticeable in the 
towns of Iowa through which we 
passed, of the class just enumerated, 
that almost without exception, the 
trail we were traveling led us through 
a crossing of broad streets or into a 
village square, in the center of which 
was planted a flag pole, (a "liberty'* 
pole as some of us remember the term 
from our childhood) and from its top, 
Old Glory, brilliant in the sunlight, 
was rippling on the breeze. 

And we frequently ran upon drill 
squads, columns, platoons and all that 
sort of thing, made up from the boys 
of the schools or the towns or both, 
going through military evolutions un- 
der the direction of earnest, snappy 
drill masters; and it was to be noted 
that the commands were obeyed in- 
variably with an air of quick appre- 
ciation and seriousness, too. It had 
come to be purposeful work rather 
than a possibly usefiul recreation. 

THE TRAIL OF BLOOD 

What do you think of this? Our 
ride from Sterling, Illinois to Council 
Bluffs, Iowa, developed a weird and 



86 



THE TRAIL OF BLOOD 

startling fact. The Lincoln Highway, 
a modern replacement of the Over- 
land trail, has kept to the traditions 
of the past. Although the official 
"blaze" consists of three alternate 
bands of red, white and blue with a 
blue L on the white band, its course 
is also gruesomely marked with a 
constantly refreshed trail of blood — 
from uncounted chickens, ducks, 
geese and other domestic fowls and 
animals, ruthlessly killed through the 
wanton recklessness of some drivers 
who really seem to enjoy the Jugger- 
naut act — as drivers, of course. 

The Observer attempted to keep 
tally of the dead scattered along the 
Lincoln Highway through Iowa, but it 
soon ran into the "many others" and 
"too many to mention" classes, and 
he gave it up. There were hens, chick- 
ens, ducks and geese galore and the 
last victim we noted was a brindled 
bull dog on our way into Council 
Bluffs. 

At one place a big, high-powered 
touring car, driven as if the de'il were 
after it, (ahead of us), plowed through 
a waddling party of ducks. Four of 
them were freshly mangled and flat- 
tened out on the road as we passed 
the spot; and a young woman standing 



87 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

at the farmhouse gate near by, was 
wiping the tears from her eyes, heart 
broken. 

Miuch work was being done on the 
trail in western Iowa, between Mar- 
shalltown and Council Bluffs. New 
bridges were being built, all of con- 
crete; and a number were to replace 
others erected not many years previ- 
ously, but which were insufficiently 
footed to permanently stand in the 
deep, black loam saturated with the 
flood waters of spring. They had set- 
tled, crumbled and collapsed. 

A ROAD MACHINE 

Immense tractors, the approach of 
which would threaten destruction to 
an average country bridge "down 
east," were scattered along the way, 
together with much machinery pecu- 
liarly adapted to the soil conditions of 
that country and the work to be ac- 
complished. 

One machine in particular, was 
noted as it was engaged in slicing the 
earth from the bank above a gutter, 
like cutting cheese, to carry the grade 
back to the lot line, while a traveling 
conveyor, part of the same machine, 
was taking the earth away in a con- 
tinual stream, to a point above the 



A ROAD MACHINE 

center of the roadway and dropping it 
there. 

It was all done as easily as a corn- 
cutting machine takes the corn stalks 
fed to it and conveys the prepared 
product to the silo; or as a thresher 
eats up the bundles of oats, separates 
the grain and conveys the straw to 
the top of the stack. But the road ma- 
chine did not have to be fed; it was 
going against its work all the time, 
leaving its trail of earth in the cen- 
ter of the road. 

We found acquaintances we had 
never dreamed of and many friendly 
strangers. Of the former, the most 
noticeable were to be found among 
the young Americans who, more gen- 
erally than their elders, knew and 
could call the passing motor cars by 
name. "Ah, there, you Franklin!" was 
a greeting from the school boys, va- 
ried in wording sometimes, but fre- 
those boys. There was no "freshness" 
quently heard. 

And they were shrewd little fellows, 
in the manner of one, we recall, who 
lightly swung himself on the running 
board of the car as the Pilot slowed 
up at a curve, when the boy profferred 
the information that we could avoid a 
drive of several blocks through the 

89 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

vvusmess section and save some time 
oy "going right down this street," and 
coming out onto the main trail again 
after it had made the big turn. The 
Pilot took advantage of the informa- 
tion, cut out the swing through the 
town, saved some travel and time and 
— the boy had an opportunity to gra- 
tify his curiosity about the instrument 
board, and a ride home! 

A WESTERN HOLD-UP 

Driving into Council Bluffs, we were 
soon speeding over the long, straight, 
paved way to the bridge end, for a 
crossing over the Missouri river to 
Omaha. Time was when Council Bluffs 
was the eastern terminal of the Union 
Pacific railroad both de facto and de 
jure. Then west bound passengers de- 
trained from the connecting eastern 
lines at the terminal station at Coun- 
cil Bluffs, passed through the station 
and entrained on the waiting Union 
Pacific coaches made up by the long 
train sheds, extending out toward the 
river, if they were day coach passen- 
gers; or waited the transfer of their 
cars, if they were through Pullman 
patrons. 

At that time Omaha was simply an 
important station on the other side of 



SO 



A WESTERN HOLD-UP 

the river, righteously ashamed of the 
most disreputable station on the line 
of the U. P. Times have changed, how- 
ever, and the relative positions of 
the two cities have changed, also. Now 
the passenger from the east is laid 
down, but not necessarily held up, in 
Omaha. 

The Pilot and Observer were held 
up at the Council Bluffs end of the 
great bridge, and by a Nebraskan, too. 
It happened directly after the bridge 
toll had been paid over to the guard 
entitling us to the right of way. 

Nebraska was the most arid of all 
the agricultural states while Iowa was 
yet enjoying a wet season. Thirsty 
Nebraskans on the Omaha side were 
sending out great waves of soul yearn- 
ings across the "Big Muddy," and the 
accommodating Bluffites would fane 
respond, but the stern voice of the 
Commonwealth said, Nay. 

Every individual with bulging pock- 
ets, unusual bundles or heavy, small 
grips, and all strange motorists, west- 
ward bound, were looked upon with 
suspicion as probably bootleggers. 
That suspicion had to be satisfied or 
d spelled, and the excise officer stand- 
ing by the side of the guard when we 
had paid his toll, indicated to us that 

91 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

he desired us to wait, and became 
mildly inquisitive. 

He was not offensively so, however. 
So we just threw the doors wide open 
and invited him to go to it and take 
his own time about it; only asking 
that he would let us get over in time 
for dinner that evening, as we had 
traveled far and were ahungered if 
not athirst. 

Evidently we were too willing, for 
he just told us to beat it. And we did. 
After traveling 231 miles that day, we 
were at our hotel at 6:30, 1,453 miles 
and one week from the Dudley creek 
bridge at Lisle. 

OMAHA 

As we were approaching Council 
Bluffs before coming over to Omaha, 
a turn in the road brought us out from 
behind a ridge which had been limit- 
ing our vision, and we came into a 
more comprehensive view of the val- 
ley of the Missouri. Then the Pilot, 
scanning the sky in the west, saw 
some things out of the ordinary, float- 
ing high in the air over the Nebraska 
side. "Airplanes!" was the first excla- 
mation. 

But they did not correspond with 
the specifications, were not in proper 

925 



OMAHA 

formation for flight and were appar- 
ently motionless. They were box kites 
or something on that order — half a 
dozen of them perhaps — flying high 
above Fort Omaha. This post is the 
more recently constructed military es- 
tablishment and located adjacent to 
the city, on the north side. It has been 
principally, if not wholly, given over 
to the signal service as one of its 
chief experimental stations. 

Old Fort Crook, next to the city, 
on the south, has been maintained as 
an infantry post. Omaha was the head- 
quarters of the old department of the 
Missouri, before the present order of 
things was established; and much of 
the Indian campaigning of earlier 
years was directed from this point. 
Fort Crook was so designated in honor 
of General Crook, whose record as an 
Indian fighter has been written into 
the history of the western frontier. 

Omaha is about 65 years old, has 
from the first, been a great outfitting 
and trading point; does considerable 
manufacturing; is one of the largest 
three stock-yards and meat-packing 
cities in the country; claims to have 
the largest smelting and refining 
works of the kind in the world; and 
lias a population of 138,000. ^n impor- 

93 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

taut trade center and a competing 
point for several great railroad sys- 
tems, it is now one of those cities you 
tally off with the index finger of one 
hand upon the four fingers of the oth- 
er, between the Mississippi and the 
Pacific coast. 

LINCOLN 

After a night in Omaha and on the 
morning of August 21st, the Pilot 
turned the car toward the west again, 
this time to' travel over the Omaha, 
Lincoln and Denver highway, (blazed, 
"OLD"), through "Burlington" terri- 
tory, into Colorado. The heavy black 
line tracing the route on our map, al- 
ways west and south, west and south, 
repeated many times, resembled the 
outline of a moderately easy pair of 
stairs, descending which we expected 
to reach Lincoln, the capitol of the 
state. 

At the outskirts of the city, a detour 
carried us to the north and over the 
Lincoln Highway westward for a few 
miles, when we dropped back again 
to the "OLD" and continued on to 
the village of Gretna, Sarpy county, 
where we stopped at the drug store 
for a few moments to get in touch 
with Omaha by telephone. A dozen 



LINCOLN 

miles mors, and we had crossed the 
Platte river and passed through Ash- 
land, a town of 1,400 people in the 
southeast corner of Saunders county. 
Then we covered a five-mile straight- 
away due south before resuming the 
usual zig-zag west-south, west-south 
course into Lincoln. 

While we did not step at that city 
longer than was necessary to take on 
gas for the car and lunch for our- 
selves, it may be observed in passing, 
that Lincoln has been the capitol of 
Nebraska since 1867, the year of the 
admission of the state. It has a popu- 
lation of obout 46,000, and many state 
institutions are centered there. Be- 
side the University of Nebraska, sev- 
eral other institutions of advanced 
education are located there; and a 
college population of 8,000 is claimed 
for the city. It is a well kept and at- 
tractive town with unusually broad 
and well paved streets. 

Lincoln is a prairie town located 
on no stream of commercial impor- 
tance. Salt creek is its only water 
course, and that is figuratively nav- 
igable only for disappointed political 
aspirants. There are many saline 
springs and a large salt lake in the 
immediate vicinity 'of the city, Lin- 

95 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

coin is strong on butter and chickens 
— claims to have the largest creamery 
in the wide, wide world, and to buy 
and sell more live poultry than any 
other market in the country. This 
may account for the fact that while 
we had seen some dead pigs and 
things, marking the trail west of the 
Missouri river, no chickens or other 
poultry were observable scattered a- 
long the way. 

A SIMOOM 

In leaving Lincoln in Lancaster 
county, and traveling to Hastings, 
county seat of Adams county, we drove 
south 17 miles in going west 85 miles; 
passed through eight villages and 
towns ranging from 350 to 1,700 in 
population; and covered four straight 
stretches running due west, averag- 
ing 17 miles each, out of the entirt 
distance of 102 miles. 

We had entered upon the Nebraska 
sector of the great corn belt during 
the prevalence of a terribly blasting 
simoon. We had already reached the 
edge of the affected district when we 
were 20 or 25 miles from Council 
Bluffs as we drove down the Missouri 
valley toward that city. The seared 
mark of its presence had been burned 

36 



A SIMOOM 

into the fields of corn at many places 
along the way. 

It was August, and the temperature 
in the late afternoon when we crossed 
the Missouri to Omaha, did not im- 
press us as being unusual for the sea- 
son; but in the city, the hot wave 
rolling in from the south was a sub- 
ject for conversation. 

Nebraska was fourth among the corn 
producing states in 1917, with a yield 
of nearly a quarter of a billion bushels 
of corn. This hot wind rushing up 
from the Gulf over Kansas and drop- 
ping down upon the miles upon miles 
of half matured fields in Nebraska, 
was wiping (out millions upon millions 
of bushels of corn and entailing a loss 
to the Nebraska farmers of an enor- 
mous amount of money. 

That morning, after we had driven 
out of the city into the open and 
passed over the rather broken coun- 
try between the town and the cross- 
ing of the Platte river, and had com- 
menced our generally southwest 
course to Lincoln we began toi feel 
somewhat of the force of that dry, 
hot, south wind, accentuated as it was 
by our own speed diagonally against 
it. 

Our course was through an almost 

97 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

exclusively corn-growing country. We 
saw little else in the fields, with the 
exception of some alfalfa which was 
being cut, cured and stacked. As the 
sun rose and passed the meridian the 
lieat became more intense and the 
wind increased. It was neither a sooth- 
ing zephyer nor a cooling breeze. It 
was a veritable simoom. 

Out of Lincoln we were in the glare 
of it and the withering, parching, 
searing effect of it. We passed hun- 
dreds and hundreds, into the thous- 
ands, of acres of standing corn, as 
dead and bleached and whitened as 
any bunch of stalks you have ever 
seen standing out through late au- 
tumn's frosts and rains and winter's 
snows and ice — juiceless, lifeless, 
crackling, fantastic, flapping things 
above a gray-husked, half matured ear 
of corn, broken down and trailing in 
the dust below. 

WAS IT HOT? 

The housewife has sometime opened 
the door of an empty, over-heated 
oven and felt the hot blast of air in 
her face and still remembers the sen- 
sation of it. The man of the house 
may sometime have been called upon 
to fight a hot fire at close quarters; 

93 



WAS IT HOT? 

and will understand. That continual, 
hot, driving wind was as withering and 
exhausting in its effect upon animal 
life as it was upon the corn. One didn't 
perspire. Perspiration was licked up 
so instantly by that kiln-dried wind 
that it anticipated production. It was 
hot and burning upon one's face; 
there was no life in it as it entered 
one's lungs. One could almost feel the 
skin of his face drawn, become leath- 
ery and hardened and he expectantly 
listened to hear it crack. 

Of course it was hot. We were at 
the top of a modest hill and the Pilot 
had the engine hood up for the pur- 
pose of feeding the mechanism more 
oil, when our attention was attracted 
by a great, rushing roar like a steam 
exhaust, to a touring car manned by a 
young woman in her 'teens at the 
foot of the hill. A trio made up of a 
man and two women all of whom had 
arrived at the years of discretion and 
dignity, spilled themselves rather un- 
dignifiedly out of the car into the 
highway while the young woman at 
the wheel implored them to "push!" 

The elderly ladies seemed inclined 
to increase the distance between them- 
selves and the roaring radiator; but 



99 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

the gentleman put his shoulder to the 
car and pushed. Directly the roar grew 
more terrific and the car began to 
crawl slowly up the hill to the top 
where it was halted until the erst- 
while passengers had walked up to it. 
A spring of ice cold water would have 
looked mighty good to the driver of 
that car for the nonce. 

AN EVENING'S DRIVE 

We arrived at Hastings at about 
6 o'clock in the evening and dined; 
after which "the cool of the evening" 
seemed so inviting and so much to be 
preferred to hot, stuffy rooms, that 
the Observer suggested a farther 
drive; and the Pilot assented and 
headed the car out for Holdredge, 
seat of Phelps county, 60 miles away. 
Darkness was soon upon us and the 
headlights were turned on for the 
first time during the trip. 

Somewhere, shortly after we left 
Hastings that night, we crossed the 
trail of Mr. Edwin Bryant and his 
party, who came up the Big Blue and 
crossed over to the Grand Island of the 
Platte river, to continue their way up 
that stream to old Fort Laramie, 
(which was then a trading post only 
and not a military station), and thence 

1C0 



THE FRIEND IN NEED 

over the mountains into California, 
which was then a part of Mexico. The 
trail was made in June, 1846, but we 
must have crossed it. 

At a quarter after 11 that night we 
drew up to the hotel at Holdredge, 
after a total drive of 253 miles, and 
found very comfortable accommoda- 
tions for ourselves; but because of 
the lateness of the hour, we were 
constrained to accept the invitation 
of the hotel management to park 
our car for the night in the open by 
the side of the hotel. 

The following morning we had 
breakfasted and were off at 7:45, 
dropping down to Oxford on the Re- 
publican river, which stream we fol- 
lowed to McCook, county seat of Red 
Willow county and a town of about 
4,000 population. Thence we contin- 
ued up the valley of Frenchman's 
Fork northwest into Chase county, 
Nebraska, and over to Holyoke, 
Phelps county, Colorado, and on to 
Sterling, county seat of Logan county, 
on the west side of the South Platte 
river. 

THE FRIEND IN NEED 

While yet in Nebraska, we had seen 
a threatening storm cloud in the north- 

101 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

west, draw near and nearer as we 
rushed on; and we had escaped from 
a parched and burning agricultural 
country to an arid region blessed with 
mud, where the storm cloud had evi- 
dently passed and opened its heart be- 
fore we arrived. 

Nice, rich, greasy gumbo it was, 
wet up in a freshly worked road; but 
the Pilot buckled down to it and was 
plowing through all right, holding to 
the ridge of the road, when we came 
up with Mr. Engrin, more familiarly 
known as "Bob" Engrin, of the sports 
page of the New York Evening World. 
He was accompanied by Mrs. Engrin 
and their young son, and traveling 
across the continent in a "Franklin" 
Sedan. He was off the center of the 
road, struggling against the insistent 
attraction of gravitation toward the 
ditch — and he lost out. 

It was simply an engineering prop- 
osition. The chains were in the car 
rather than on the wheels; there was 
not a pebble, much less a sizeable 
rock or flat stone in the township; 
there were no fences and fence posts 
and boards were unknown quantities 
and there was no human habitation 
within the range of vision. There were 
jacks for raising the car, but no foot- 

102 



THE MOUNTAINS 

ing for thorn in the mud; however, 
there was a reserve of human patience, 
perseverence and some ingenuity, 
while the country was full of unhar- 
vested tumble weeds. These weeds, 
matted under thte wheels, afforded 
them something to take hold of, the 
car rolled itself out into the roadway 
and the journey was resumed with- 
out further incident. 

THE MOUNTAINS 

We were drawing nearer to our 
chief objective. Fcir some hours we 
liad been gazing into the cerulean 
vault which arched over the shadowy, 
purple mountains silhoutted on the 
western horizon, when we drove a- 
cross the bridge over the South Platte 
river into Sterling, Colorado/, at 7:15 
that evening, after a drive of 265 
miles. There we were well fed and 
comfortably housed for the night. 

And on the following morning at 
7:45 we were on the road again, driv- 
ing up the river (southwest) to Poirt 
Morgan, and thence westerly, (still up 
the river), to Greeley, continually 
looking over valleys that were ver- 
itably blooming as the rose — irrigated 
lands which were principally growing 
alfafa, beets and beans. Villages aad 
towns were liberally scattered about 

103 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

in the picture; and great factory 
stacks, rising abcve the trees, marked 
the locations of a number of large 
sugar plants. Everything and every- 
body seemed to be thoroughly alive 
and thriving. We crossed, recrossed 
and paralled irrigation canals and 
ditches running more water than a 
large proportion of the streams noted 
on our maps. 

At noon we drove into Greeley, 
county seat of Weld county, a city of 
10,000 people in a ccilony established 
many years ago, largely through the 
influence of the New York Tribune. It 
was named in honor of Horace Gree- 
ley, the founder of the paper, and who 
was an early advocate of the practica- 
bility of reclaiming tnese, so called, 
arid lands of the west, by irrigation. 

CHEYENNE, WYOMING 

Driving north from Greeley, we soon 
passed beyond the irrigated zone, but 
were yet within the limits of cultiva- 
ted lands and a productive soil, with 
evidences of successful farming on 
every side — the work of the "dry far- 
mer." "Dry farmer" is a term which 
does not stand for an agriculturist 
cultivating an inordinate personal 
thirst, but rather, for a farmer who 

104 



THEN AND NOW 

succeeds in finding and conserving in 
the soil sufficient moisture to satisfy 
plant life therein, without resorting 
ta artificial means of distributing wat- 
er over the lands. There was a time 
when the "dry farmer" was looked 
upon as a sort of a joke in that section 
of the country; but. instead of the 
laugh, he is getting the glad hand now. 

By mid-afternoon we had driven up 
on the bluffs south of the Crow creek 
valley, overlooking Cheyenne in the 
distance; and at 3 o'clock, Friday af- 
ternoon, August 23rd, we had made 
the day's drive of 175 miles, and ar- 
rived at Cheyenne, Wyoming, 10 days 
and 2,163 miles from the Dudley creek 
bridge in Lisle, New York. 

With a daily average of 216 miles, 
the long drive over all kinds of roads 
was accomplished without an accident 
and with no engine difficulties or tire 
troubles of any kind — without even a 
puncture, 

THEN AND NOW 

Cheyenne was 12 years old when the 
Observer first arrived in Wyoming in 
the spring of 1879, and the Territory 
had been organized about 10 years. 
The Pilot appeared on the scene two 
or three years later. 

105 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

If the Pilot and Observer had driven 
into Cheyenne from the south then, as 
they did nearly 40 years later, they 
would have come out on the bluffs 
south of Crow creek and gazed across 
the valley upon an aggregation of low 
buildings, compactly built only as to a 
small area, and scattered rather loose- 
ly over the bench as to the remainder. 
The gradual slope of the land toward 
the creek valley was sufficient to give 
the town, from that point of view, a 
flat, dun background against which 
the structural units did not stand out 
very sharply defined. 

Northwest of the city, upon the edge 
of the same bench, the buildings of 
Camp Carlin, ordnance depot and 
pack train headquarters, served as a 
rather hazy hyphen between Chey- 
enne and Fort D. A. Russell located a 
little farther beyond. The low, weath- 
erstained buildings of Fort Russell 
also hugged close to the surrounding 
prairie. Camp Carlin long since was 
abandoned; but Fort Russell has been 
rebuilt into a brigade post and one of 
the most modern, complete and up to 
date military establishments in the 
country. 

There were already three lines of 
railroad then. One, the Union Pacific, 

106 



CHEYENNE, WYOMING 

traversed the city, cutting a wide 
swath from side to side, then as now. 
Another line, the Denver Pacific, had 
its independent passenger and freight 
stations about midway of the town 
south of the Union Pacific. A third 
line, the Colorado Central, swung in 
from the south to a connection with 
IT. P. at Kazzard, up the hill a few 
miles west of Cheyenne, and its trains 
ran into town over the U. P. tracks. 
In fact this road had been built to 
give the Union Pacific access to the 
Denver field. The distance to Denver 
was 106 miles by one line and 112 by 
the other, and the fare was $10 one 
way, over either line. 

Of course 40 years have made great 
changes in the railroad situation in 
Cheyenne. Both the Denver Pacific 
and the Colorado Central are memo- 
ries only, in so far as Cheyenne is 
concerned. But the Union Pacific now 
has a line from Kansas City, 
through Kansas and Colorado by the 
way of Denver to a junction at Chey- 
enne, with the main line from Coun- 
cil Bluffs and Omaha, which contin- 
ues westward by connecting lines to 
the Pacific coast at Los Angeles, San 
Francisco, Portland and Seattle. 

The Burlington line built into Chey- 

107 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

enne from the east, and a combina- 
tion of Northern Pacific, Burlington, 
and Colorado Southern interests to- 
gether with the building ol maoy miles 
of new track in Colorado and Wyom- 
ing have completed a through line 
from Seattle on Puget Sound to Gal- 
veston on the Gulf of Msxico, known 
as "the Sound to the Gulf route," 
which still more definitely places Chey- 
enne on the railroad map. 

When the Observer arrived in Chey- 
enne in 1879, there was but one regu- 
lar passenger train each way each 
day over the Union Pacific main line; 
and but one passenger train each way 
each day over each of the lines to 
Denver. 

FINE BUILDINGS 

Cheyenne of that day had one three- 
story building, the old Inter Ocean Ho- 
tel, a brick structure erected by a 
colored man of means, named Ford, 
in 1875. The investment was not a 
fortunate one for Ford and the prop- 
erty passed out of his hands and 
through various managements until 
December 18, 1916, when the build- 
ing was gutted by a fire which took a 
toll of lives — five, a mother and her 
four children. 

108 



CHEYENNE, WYOMING 

Cheyenne man of vision, who has 
faith in his town, does things and suc- 
ceeds, acquired the Inter Ocean prop- 
erty, razed the walls, cleared the site 
and has now in course of completion, 
despite the trying times of the past 
year, a splendid, modern office build- 
ing of steel and concrete and fire proof 
which will be something of a sky- 
scraper and in a class by itself. 

Across from the old Inter Ocean on 
the east side of Hill street (now Cap- 
itol avenue), was located Abney's 
livery stable and corral a frame build- 
ing subsequently replaced by a brick 
structure. Mr. Abney was a member 
of the first legislative assembly of the 
new Territory in 1869. This corner is 
now occupied by the five-story office 
building of the First National Bank of 
Cheyenne, and in which that bank has 
its quarters. 

Mortimer E. Post, banker, was 
located on Ferguson street (now Carey 
avenue), between 16th and 17th and 
after ward built a new block for his 
bank at the corner of Ferguson and 
17th streets, now used as quarters 
for a recently organized trust com- 
pany. Forty years ago, Mr. and Mrs. 
Post lived in one of the tiniest of the 
little frame houses first erected in 

109 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

Cheyenne, located at the corner of 
17th and Hill streets, and that site is 
now occupied by the handsome and 
unique stone bank building erected 
for the exclusive use of the Stock- 
growers' National Bank. 

A dwelling which once housed the 
Observer in the course of his news- 
paper career in Cheyenne, stood on the 
southwest corner of 18th and Ferguson 
streets; but it is not there now. In its 
stead rises the six-story bank and 
office building in which is housed the 
Citizens' National Bank of Cheyenne. 

SUSPENDED ANIMATION 

On the (Opposite corner on the north 
side of 18th street stood the old Epis- 
copal church and back of it a lumber 
yard. A sign board extended out a- 
cross the sidewalk from the lumber 
yard, supported by posts at either end; 
and on the upper edge of the sign 
board at about its middle was a pecu- 
liar crease. That crease was made by 
a rope and there was a noose at one 
end of it and the noose was under the 
chin of a man. The other end of the 
rope was in the grasp of a number of 
strong, willing, even eager, hands 
pulling the rope taut and tauter over 
the sign board, in course of which 

110 



THEN AND NOW 

that peculiar crease was made. It was 
a rather primitive way of compelling 
the man in the noose to give up infor- 
mation he was believed to possess 
concerning the murder of a young 
woman shot on the street near by. 

The Episcopal church was a tem- 
porary, mission sort of a structure, 
finished with boards, upright and 
cleated; and the Rectory, adjoining 
was of similar material and archi- 
tecture and even larger than the 
church. Adjoining the Rectory was a 
dwelling house or two; and then, on 
the corner of 18th and Eddy (now 
Pioneer avenue), was located Recrea- 
tion Hall. 

Recreation Hall was a plain, one- 
stciry, brick building with a dancing 
floor inside and a stage at «he rear. 
Here entertainment, histrionic and 
terpsichorean, was staged and public 
meetings housed— until it was sold 
and converted into a livery stable; 
but the church and Rectory, dwellings 
and hall, and the lumber yard with 
the rope-creased sign, are all gone. 
On that half block the Government 
has erected a stately edifice of native 
sandstone for the accommodation of 
the Federal Courts, the post-office 
and various other Federal offices. 



111 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 



ALL FROM LISLE 

On Eddy, between 16th and 17th 
streets, was located H. H. Ellis' bake- 
ry and confectionery wherein five 
young men from Lisle, N, Y., includ- 
ing the Pilot and Observer, found em- 
ployment at one time or another. Mr. 
Ellis changed his location to another 
section of the business district before 
his death, and the business has been 
continued by his son. 

Of those five Lisle boys, two are on 
the west coast and two are in the east ; 
but one, Edward A. Reed, died in Cali- 
fornia some years ago and his body 
was brought to Cheyenne and laid 
away in the Silent City overlooking 
the town and growing with it apace. 
And there are others of his native 
townspeople who keep him company 
there. 

The establishment of Port Russell 
by the Government and the platting of 
Cheyenne by the railroad company, at 
or near the crossing of Crow creek by 
the Union Pacific railroad, created 
great excitement in the older city Of 

112 



ALL FROM LISLE 

Denver; for Denver was an interior 
town at the base of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, to be reached from the east only 
after hundreds of miles of travel 
across the plains by horse, emigrant 
wagon or stage coach. There was no 
tangible prospect of any change in 
this respect. 

W. D. Pease at an early day in its 
history, was postmaster at Denver, but 
he, too, was caught by the excitement 
and came over to Cheyenne City on the 
crest of the wave from the south. 
Forty years ago Mr. Pease was senior 
partner in the firm of Pease & Taylor, 
grocers, with the firm of Whipple & 
Hay, also grocers, occupying the 
"Stone Front" block between 16th and 
17th street on Ferguson. (This block 
has recently been added toi and re- 
built into the "New Princess Thea- 
tre.") Ephraim B. and Caroline Pease, 
his wife, parents of W. D. Pease, and 
their daughter, Virgie Pease, married, 
Underwood, once living on the farm 
at Pease Hill, beyond Caldwell Settle- 
ment, became residents of Cheyenne. 
All four of them now rest in the shade 
of the sheltering trees anff among the 
flowers of Lake View. 

A splendid, five-story modern hotel, 
the Plains, the construction and fit- 

113 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

ting of which represent an investment 
oi a quarter of a million of dollars, 
lias arisen on the northwest corner ol 
Central avenue and 16th street (novr 
Lincoln Way), where in the early 
years stood the residence and office of 
Dr. Graham and other equally ancient 
buildings. The lobby of the Plains has 
become the citizens' club where the 
townspeople and up-state guests meet 
daily, socially and for business con- 
sultations. 

OLD JEWELRY 

In the lobby of the Plains, the Ob- 
server was looking over the day's 
news. He was wearing in his tie that 
morning a scarf pin which had been 
presented to him in March, 1886, by 
the members of the House of the ninth 
legislative assembly of Wyoming Ter- 
ritory. The pin had been purchased 
from the stock of a jeweler who had 
passed his 21st birthday in Chey- 
enne and has been engaged in the 
watch maker's and jeweler's business 
in Wyoming for 50 years. 

There in the lobby of the Plains, 
the Observer and Jeweler met, so 
many years after the presentation re- 
ferred to. The greetings were: "How 
do you do, Dave?" "Why, how do you 
do, Frank?— Ah, the pin! Wonderful!" 

114 



CHEYENNE, WYOMING 

The recognition of a piece of jewelry 
he had sold out of stock 32 years be- 
fore was as quick as his memory of 
the face of the on^ who had received 
it, and whose daily associations with 
him had only been interrupted for, 
say, ten years. 

But to continue a comparison of the 
then and now of Cheyenne in detail 
would "make a book." Cheyenne of 
40 years ago was a boisterous young- 
ster just arriving at his 'teens. As a 
town it was "all night and wide open." 
The sale of liquors, wines and beer 
and the conduct of games of chance 
were both licensed under the law, and 
there were many people engaged in 
both. It was very much of a free and 
easy with certain eommonly accepted 
limitations. But a most rediculously 
small police force was sufficient to 
preserve order and crime was at no 
time rampant. 

Out of those early conditions has 
grown the largest little city of its size 
in the whole country, good to look 
upon with its fine and numerous 
schools, churches, libraries, public 
buildings, parks, business houses, the- 
atres, hotel accommodations, and a- 
bove all, its splendid homes. With an 

115 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

ample and healthful water supply, for 
ail purposes, a paid fire department 
and a dependable lighting system, 
and other advantages altogether "too 
numerous to mention," the contrast be- 
tween then and now is mighty satisfy- 
ing to one whose best years have en- 
tered into the daily life of the Magic- 
City. 

After a fortnight at Cheyenne, (save 
only the Pilot's rail trip to the coast 
and back), on Sunday morning, Sep- 
tember 8, the car was turned to the 
south and the Pilot and Observer ne- 
gotiated the distance to Denver, via 
Fort Collins without incident other 
than a few moments conversation with 
a member of the Colorado State con- 
stabulary at his camp just over the 
Wyoming-Colorado line, set there for 
the interception of bootleggers unlaw- 
fully engaged in bringing booze into 
dry Colorado. 

And we dined and passed the night 
in Denver. 

DENVER 

In June, 1859, Horace Greeley, edi- 
tor of the New York Tribune, arrived 
at Denver on the Pike's Peak stage 
from Leavenworth, Kansas. At that 
time there were two rival "cities'* on 

116 



DENVER 

Cherry creek — Denver on the one side, 
an infant of six months; and Auraria 
on the opposite bank, already a year- 
ling. There were a hundred houses or 
more in these two towns, all small, 
xinfloored and built of cottonwood logs 
cut nearby, along the South Platte. 
The "Pike's Peak iot bust" excite- 
ment was already subsiding and some 
prospectors, discouraged and pessi- 
mistic, maintained that there was no 
gold in the Rocky Mountains and re- 
turned to the States. Denver survived, 
however, absorbed its rival across the 
stream and was definitely put on the 
map. 

About 25 years later, Denver, capi- 
tal of the Centennial State, had ar- 
rived at the proportions, and taken on 
the habiliments and air, of a city. She 
had achieved the Windsor hotel, the 
Tabor Grand opera house, Charepiot's 
restaurant and was staging a Mining 
Exposition of some pretentions, which 
was started off right with a much ad- 
vertised "Business Men's barbecue," 
to which the world was invited. 

"Long John" Arkins was managing 
the News, Eugene Field had been 
lured from St. Joe, Mo., and was at- 
tached to the Tribune, writing his 

117 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

"Primer" and other things, mostly in 
the lighter vein. 

"Bill Nye," of the Boomerang, and 
the Observer, then with the Cheyenne 
Leader, chose that time to descend 
upon Colorado's congested capital. 
Finding themselves crowded out at 
the Windsor, they did find sleeping 
accommodations in the sky parlor un- 
der the mansard roof of the old Mark- 
ham hotel, ate water melon and things 
at Charepiot's saw Frank Mordaunt in 
"Old Shipmates" at the Tabor Grand 
and had a roundup with Field and oth- 
ers later in the evening. Some city — 
but a bicycle was somewhat of a curi- 
osity then, and automobile was an un- 
used word. 

The Pilot and Observer rolled into 
Denver from Cheyenne nearly 60 years 
after Horace Greeley, at the end of 
650 miles of stage travel from Leaven- 
worth, first spread his blankets on the 
rough board slats of a rudely con- 
structed bedstead in the "Denver 
House," in uncomfortable proximity to 
two monte games running night and 
day in the public room adjoining. But 
the Pilot and Observer rolled into a 
lively city of a quarter of a million 
of people, possessing all the advan- 
tages and attractions a modern city of 

118 



IN THE RAIN 

that size stands for and — very much 
more. 

COLORADO SPRINGS 

On Monday afternoon, September 9, 
at 2:45, we left our hotel ion Broad- 
way, continuing our journey toward 
the foot of Pike's Peak and arrived at 
our hotel at Colorado Springs at 7:30 
in the evening. We ran into a rain 
storm, and the last half of the after- 
noon's drive was through a more or 
less driving rain; but the sandy road 
was improved if anything, by the 
storm, and while the incident was not 
favorable to scenic display, it did not 
seriously detract otherwise from the 
pleasure of the drive — and there was 
plenty of scenery left over for another 
day. 

The rain through which we drove 
into Colorado Springs continued into 
the night, and extended east to Limon, 
Colorado, and beyond, 75 or 80 miles 
away. On the mountains it had been 
snow and an extra coat of white had 
been thrown over Pike's Peak. This 
dissipated the Pilot's plan for driving 
the car to the top iof the mountain. 

An anto highway has been construct- 
ed from 20 to 50 feet wide, on an av- 
erage grade of 7 per cent, with a max- 

119 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

imum of 10 % per cent, and rising from 
an altitude of 5,939 feet at Colorado 
Springs, and 6,336 feet at Manitou, to 
14,109 feet at the summit of Pike's 
Peak in a traveled distance iof 30 miles 
from Colorado Springs. 

During the season automobiles make 
regular trips morning and afternoon, 
and in July and August, trips are 
started from the hotels below between 
one and two o'clock a. m., toi reach 
the summit for sunrise. Private cars, 
motor cycles, equestrians and pedes- 
trians are permitted the use of the 
highway upon payment of toll. 

Colorado Springs, 35 years ago, had 
all the possibilities accredited to it by 
General Palmer, and but few of them 
had been realized upon. It is altogether 
different now. Great wealth wrested 
from the mountains of Colorado, and 
the men who "wrested" or ultimately 
"landed" it, have centered there; and 
the fact is made evident on every side. 

AND MANITOU 

Through the courtesy of resident 
friends of the Pilot, we had the pleas- 
ure of being driven about Colorado 
Springs and Manitou by one familiar 
with the local trails and the attrac- 
tions they led to and so, in a compar- 

120 



AND MANITOU 

atively little time, covered much of 
that interesting field. 

General Palmer laid out Colorado 
Springs and planned Glen Eyrie many 
years ago. It is now about 35 years 
since the Observer first visited the 
town and General Palmer's, even then, 
beautiful place; tarried with the not 
altogether agreeable waters of Mani- 
tou Springs, sized up the falls, looked 
into the canons and wandered through 
the Garden of the Gods. These natural 
attractions are all there yet on the 
same old job. 

The burro is not now monopolizing 
the transportation to tne summit of 
Pike's Peak. The cog road first cut 
into his business, but now one may 
ride to the summit above the clouds 
over an easy trail in all the luxury 
and comfort toif his own town car. 
The mountain, Manitou, has been put 
into the game with an "incline" up to 
his crest. New drives and foot paths 
have been built and additional "parks" 
brought into the string of attractions. 
Hotels have grown larger and become 
more numerous; stores and restau- 
rants abound, and dwellings are perch- 
ed in all sorts of unlooked for places, 
as well as along the cramped and 
crooked streets. And they do say, 



121 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

many people live in Manitou the win- 
ter through, sometimes in, often on, 
and frequently under the snow. 

The driver of our friend's car was 
an experienced and dependable chauf- 
feur, quiet and imperturbable, and 
with a sense of humor withal; but 
not beyond putting lotne over on the 
traffic cop, perhaps, when the chance 
is inviting. We had been out toward 
Ute Pass, indulged in a drink of the 
waters artificially improved with 
added ingredients, stopped at several 
of the curio shops and were about to 
set out on our return to Colorado 
Springs. 

A trolley car, townward bound, 
stopped ahead of us and was taking 
on a crowd sufficiently large to block 
the right side of the street at that 
point; the "wrong" side was clear 
and free from loither traffic. Our driver 
sized up the situation as he approach- 
ed and let his car swing on by — or 
was about to do so — when an active 
little cus-tomer under a slouch hat, 
trouser legs in his boot tops and a 
burnished piece of small hardware on 
his breast, rushed from among the 
people on the curb, and called on us 
to stop. 

122 



MANITOU 

"Dont you see that street car stand- 
ing there?" he demanded of the driv- 
er roughly. 

"Yes, sir." Very quietly and in- 
offensively. 

"Well, then, what are you doing on 
this side of the street?" persisted 
the officer severely. 

"Well, I thought—" 

"You know the regulations. Why, I 
am arresting people right here every 
day, for doing just this same," con- 
tinued the officer with undiminished 
asperity. 

"I am very sorry, but — " 

"I ought to take you in, right now. 
Where are you from?" continued the 
little fellow. 

"Pueblo, sir." answered the driver 
of the automobile, with an immobile 
face. 

"Well, even a man from Pueblo 
ought to know better than to try to 
pass that street car on this side of 
the street. You'd better not let me 
catch you at it again," and the officer 
drew aside. 

"No, sir; thank you," and the en- 
gine turned. "Gee!" said the driver; 
"if he had happened to see my license, 
that Pueblloi story wouldn't hiave 

123 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

stuck; and he certainly would have 
stuck me." 

A little dissimulation, now and then, 
gets by even the policemen. And 
Manitou gathers in its coin from the 
tourists from Pueblo and unnumbered 
other towns at the hotels, shops, 
booths and the like, not through the 
police court. 

"WALT MASON" 

The road reports were not reassur- 
ing Wednesday morning, but the Pilot 
trimmed his ear for the first day's 
drive homeward bound. While doing 
so, at the garage of the Franklin deal- 
er, we met "Walt Mason," the maker 
el "Rippling Rhymes," who had re- 
turned thus far from his midsummer 
outing in the mountains at Estes Park. 
Your "Uncle Walt" was a compactly 
built man of medium stature and age, 
dark, quietly direct in speech and 
philosophically attached to a much 
blackened pipe of modest proportions. 

Although Colorado was a bone-dry 
state, maintaining armed guards 
against incursions from the terri- 
tory of her wet neighbor, Wyoming, 
the meteorological reports recorded 
the greatest rain fall in the mountain 
states last summer in their history for 

124 



"WALT MASON" 

the same season in the year, and "dry" 
farmers were growing bumper crops 
on the tops of sand dunes — perhaps. 
These conditions account for "Walt 
Mason's" cogitations on "Perverse Na- 
ture," beginning, "The mountains have 
no valued crops that drouth might put 
in wrong; and there the rainfall sel- 
dom stops the whole blamed summer 
long;" and concluding, "The ways of 
Nature bother men, in this strange 
world of ours; the rocks are soaked 
and soaked again, while corn fields 
pant for showers." And they surely did 
pant — in Nebraska and Kansas. 

"Walt Mason" and his wife were 
traveling in a "Franklin" Sedan, and 
using an >apen car of another make for 
the transportation of their luggage and 
other equipment. We were to follow 
the same trail a large part of the way 
across Kansas, until he should leave 
it to strike south to Emporia. As we 
pulled out he asked, "Where do you 
eat?" We did not know; nor did we 
"meet up" again. 

We started out at 9:45, an uncertain 
road before us and reports discourag- 
ing. We found a passable to fair road, 
with the exception of a short piece of 
heavy mud, into Limon, Colorado, 78 
miles; and there we ate a midday 

125 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

meal in a little, crowded, fly-infested 
mating place, and then pulled out for 
Colby, Kansas. 

"PINCHED!"— NOT US 

A car immediately ahead of us with 
three passengers and some camp 
equipage, was overtaken. The Pilot 
was not racing across the country, but 
he wanted a chance to take his usual 
gait when the road warranted, and he 
asked for track in the usual way. The 
stranger declined to relinquish his 
lead and speeded up, but he did not 
maintain his speed. When he slowed 
down he was back on the nose of our 
car; and again the Pilot asked for 
the road and again the stranger pulled 
away. This was repeated and contin- 
ued over a number of miles, and the 
leading van was getting quite a head, 
on when we passed Genoa or Bovina 
or somewhere along there. 

The road divided, one branch swing- 
ing around thrdugh town and the other 
passing by through the edge of the vil- 
lage. The Pilot slowed up at the forks 
in doubt, but the leading car kept up 
its speed straight ahead, and ran, so 
to speak, into the arms of a long, 
lank and bewhiskered individual, wild- 
ly gesticulating and flourishing a lath, 

126 



KANSAS 

or yard stick or something like that 
and shouting at the approaching car. 
One of the autoists jumped out and a 
jabberfest began, in the excitement of 
which, we quietly approached and 
glided by and out of call almost be- 
fore the native knew of our presence. 
The Observer suggested that the Pilot 
ought to have stopped and thanked 
the fellows who had held us back for 
keeping us out of the "trap;" but he 
wickedly seemed more pleased over 
their predicament than thankful for 
our escape. 

TRAVERSING KANSAS 

We reached Colby, Kansas early in 
the evening, lunched and decided to 
continue on down to Oakley. It was 
quite dark when we reached Oakley; 
but the evening was delightful, the 
road inviting and we continued on 
through a succession of great fields 
and farms and a half dozen or more 
villages with their twinkling lights, 
over bridges and across railroad tracks 
until we drove into Wakeeney, the 
county seat of Trego county, at 10 p. 
m., and found accomodations for the 
night, 337 miles ,from Colorado 
Springs. 

Leaving Wakeeney at S:15 Thurs- 

127 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

day morning, we were soon out of Tre- 
go county and working our way over 
the un worked highway across Ellis 
county, the one county in Kansas 
wherein the Golden Belt highway had 
been absolutely neglected. In Elsworth 
county we passed Kanopolis where 
are located great salt mines. 

We passed through Salina, county 
seat of Saline county, where earlier 
in the season, July 29 to August 8, 
had been held the National Farm 
Tractor Demonstration for 1918, said 
to have been the greatest event of the 
kind to date. 48 manufacturers were 
represented by 232 tractors which 
were put through their paces, plowing, 
disking, harrowing and seeding; and 
those in attendance on the first day 
were afforded the opportunity for see- 
ing 250 acres of ground plowed in 
less than two hours. The grounds 
were located at or near the intersec- 
tion of the route we were traveling 
and a north and south trail called the 
Meridian route. 

After leaving Junction City, once 
referred to as the "western outpost of 
civilization"), we drove through Fort 
Riley and Camp Funston, where the 
number of soldiers in training during 
the war had been thousands and some 

128 



TRAVERSING KANSAS 

thousands were in camp and on the 
fields at the time of our passing. 
Thence we drove into Manhattan, 
seat of Riley county, and dined. 

"SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE" 

At Manhattan we broke away from 
our main trail on a side trip to Con- 
cordia, Cloud county, and drove to 
Clay Center, county seat of Clay 
county; where we arrived late that 
evening and stopped for the night, hav- 
ing traveled 267 miles during the day. 

After an early breakfast the follow- 
ing morning, (Friday, September 13), 
we continued our drive from Clay 
Center northwest by the way of Clif- 
ton, Washington county, and Clyde 
and arrived at Concordia about 11 
o'clock that morning. After enjoying 
a pleasant two or three hours as the 
guests of Mr. and Mrs. Ogilvie Atwood, 
former residents of Lisle, at Killawog, 
but now for many years in business 
at Clifton and Concordia, the Pilot 
and Observer retraced the trail to 
Manhattan. We continued thence to 
Topeka where we arrived in a cloud 
of dust extending out for miles from 
the city, made by the Kansas farmers 
and their families escaping in their 
automobiles from the closing days of 

129 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

the Kansas State Fair and the over- 
taxed accomodations of a city, where 
everything was said to be full but 
the people. 

We modestly inquired for accomo- 
dations at one of the leading hotels 
and were informed that there was 
nothing doing. At another, we less 
modestly put in a requisition and were 
assigned a rather unconventional 
suite, an unusually large and simply 
furnished, but well lighted room, with 
a pleasant alcove and bed and a nice 
bath — a traveling salesman's boudoir, 
on the top floor above the dust and 
noise of the street. It was the last 
room, "with or without," in the house, 
and we got it. Our day's travel was 
245 miles. 

We remained the following fore- 
noon in Topeka, primarily to meet 
another "Lisle boy" who also made 
Cheyenne his first western objective, 
but eventually entered 'upon the prac- 
tice of law in Kansas — in later years 
at Topeka. After a call at his home 
and a little visit, brief, but sufficient 
to quicken the memories of old asso- 
ciations, the Pilot and Observer were 
on their way again, over an incident- 
less and not particularly interesting 
road to the Missouri river, crossing 

130 



A LONG TRAIL 

which, we were in Kansas City, Mis- 
souri, by 5 o'clock, after a little drive 
of 82 miles. 

WINNING CALIFORNIA 

Edwin Bryant whose trail (or the 
place where he left it when he passed 
that way in June, 1846), we crossed 
west of Hastings, Nebraska, was em- 
barked upon a great adventure, which 
he had fairly entered upon at Inde- 
pendence, Missouri. That was the 
last white settlement he was to see, 
other than a few fur-trading stations, 
widely scattered, for the trading of 
merchandize for peltry from the few 
white and many Indian trappers and 
hunters, over a strip of country 2,000 
miles wide, as it was traveled. 

Independence, Missouri, now some- 
what of a city, was then a small iciut- 
fitting settlement on the Santa Fe 
trail and also, for the trail across the 
plains and over the mountains to 
Northern California and to the Oregon 
country. So musch of an adventure 
were the overland trips considered to 
be that, soi we are told, "the Masonic 
lodges commemorated the departure 
of their brother Masons, connected 
with the Santa Fe and emigranting 
parties, by a public procession and 

131 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

an address and other religious exer- 
cises. The lady Masons, that is the 
wives of the members of the fraterni- 
ty, walked in the procession to and 
from the church." 

The Bryant party left Independence 
May 5th, 1846, and traveled westward 
and to the northwest through eastern 
Iowa and western Nebraska, over 
much of the same country the Pilot 
and the Observer have been driving 
through. Where they found unim- 
proved trails, rude ferries operated 
by Indians and more or less danger- 
ous or difficult fords in crossing the 
streams, we found good roads, easy 
grades and fine bridges; and the 
whole vast expanse over which they 
slowly progressed until the following 
September was without the pale of 
civilization. 

Incidentally, it may be mentioned 
that the war with Mexico had been 
on about a week when the Bryant 
party set out, and that they arrived in 
California in time to participate in 
the American uprising there against 
the Mexican authorities and serve 
under Fremont in the local military 
preliminaries which were followed, in 
1848, by the cession of Northern Cali- 
fornia to the United States. And late 

132 



A LONG BRIDGE 

m that year the gold placers of Cali- 
fornia were discovered. 

A BRIDGE TO THE MOON 

In 1859, thirteen years after Bryant, 
Horace Greeley undertook the over- 
land journey which carried him 
through Denver, Colorado, at the stage 
In its history to which we referred in 
connection with our visit to that city. 
Already the construction of an over- 
land railroad to the coast was being 
urged — principally by Greeley, to be 
sure, for he had the vision and others 
had not. In fact, the building of such 
a road was scoffed at and likened to 
building "a tunnel under the Atlantic 
or a bridge to the moon." 

Greeley's starting point, by the 
Pike's Peak stage, was Leavenworth, 
Kansas; but he passed through Tope- 
ka, Manhattan, Fort Riley and Junc- 
tion City, which was the last settle- 
ment until he reached Denver, all of 
which towns, with the exception of 
Leavenworth, we visited in the course 
of our drive through Kansas. The 
Bryant party was four months in cov- 
ering the 2,091 miles from Indepen- 
dence, Missouri, to "Sutter's Fort," 
200 miles from San Francisco, Cali- 
fornia. The Pilot drove his "Franklin" 

133 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

2,163 miles between the Dudley creek 
bridge at Lisle, N. Y., and Cheyenne^ 
Wyoming, in ten days, and the "ree- 
<ard" time between coast and coast is 
hut aboust half as much more. 

There are more than half a dozen 
transcontinental railroad lines in fact 
across the United States alone, in- 
stead of Horace Greeley's projected 
one. The Great American Desert has 
been corralled somewhere down in 
Colorado, but irrigation and cultiva- 
tion are eating into the edges of it so 
rapidly that it is growing difficult to 
locate its boundaries. The adventur- 
ers, the venturesome, the home seek- 
ers and the home builders have 
worked a great transformation, 

flSJ "OLD MISERY" 

But we had arrived at Kansas City, 
Missouri. This city with a population 
of 282,000, is the second largest in 
the state; and is separated by the 
state line only from Kansas City, Kan- 
sas, which, with 94,000 population, is 
the largest city in Kansas. Kansas 
City, Missouri, is a great railroad 
center and has a Union Station, the 
main building of which is 510 feet 
long and 150 feet wide, and cost 
$6,000,000. 

134 



A WALLOWING STRUGGLE 

Following a friendly "tip," we 
nought accommodations far the night 
ai Kansas City at a recently con- 
structed hotel, conveniently located, 
and with so narrow a frontage, that 
its street elevation was about like a 
slice of "bread standing on edge to 
the height of five or six stories; but 
it offered guests always an outside 
room with bath and at a uniform price 
which was attractive. Of course "our" 
hotel was not the Muehlebach, "but 
it was near it, very near it." 

About 8 o'clock, Sunday morning, 
September 15th, we crossed the Mis- 
souri and started out tcver the Jeffer- 
son highway, a north and south trail 
commonly called the "Blue J" be- 
cause of its marking, a capital J in 
blue. Our first objective was Chilli* 
cothe, Livingston county, Missouri, 
where the Blue J crosses the Pike's 
Peak Ocean to Ocean highway, over 
which we purposed to travel to, Han- 
nibal, the boyhood home of Mark 
Twain. 

The early morning hour was a 
threatening one, and the weather man 
devoted the balance of the day to 
putting the threat into execution. 
Just before we reached Excelsior 
Springs, a popular resort 15 miles out 

135 



OVER BLAZED TRA!LS 

from Kansas City, we drove into the 
wet area and followed the storm into 
Chillicotfte. After taking on gas we 
started out again, over the Pike's 
Peak trail for the east and got into a 
wallowing struggle through Missouri 
mud, without respite, until late in the 
afternoon when we reached Brook- 
field in Linn county, housed our car 
and found hotel accommodations for 
the night. 

After waiting the following morning 
until about 10:30 to give the day a 
chance ta declare itself and the road 
a time to settle a bit if it would, the 
Pilot again took the wheel and brought 
the car about in the mud. 

A few miles out from Brookfield, we 
came to a camp by the roadside where 
a tourist with his wife and child had 
pitched their tent and prepared to 
wait for the sun. Dressed in khaki 
for roughing it, the head of the party 
approached us, tall, straight, black- 
haired and bare-headed, his rifle lean- 
ing against a tree near by. With all 
the surrounding elements in harmony 
w'th the fancy, (save only, the car), 
one might well imagine a return to 
the days of Crockett or Boone. The 
gentleman and his family had been 
touring across the country, living 

136 



HANNIBAL 

largely in the open, and were return- 
ing to the Pacific coast, expecting to 
spend the winter at Long Beach, Cali- 
fornia. 

At the end of eight hours and 73 
nicies of experience calculated to 
thoroughly test every fiber and bit of 
metal in the car and the physical and 
moral fiber of its driver, to the tut- 
most, we stopped at Shelbina, Shelby 
county, for the night. 

MARK TWAIN'S TOWN 

On Tuesday morning, the road be- 
fore us was reported to be still as 
bad or worse than that we had just 
negotiated; and the Pilot set his 
course over a detour by Shelbyville 
and Palmyra, out of which, after 28 
miles of mud and some passible grav- 
el, we enjoyed a piece of highway into 
Hannibal which, by comparison, 
seemed "perfectly heavenly." 

Arriving at Hannibal about noon, 
the Pilot first made arrangements to 
have the car given a much needed 
bath to avoid carrying a small sized 
Missouri farm over into the neigh- 
boring state, after which, a lunch for 
ourselves. 

Hannibal is a city of about 21,000 
people. For. the stranger to the city 

137 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

but not to literature, the one thing 
which fixes it in his recollection is 
the fact that it was the home of Mark 
Twain in his boyhood; and that it 
and its immediate surroundings have 
furnished the background and stage 
setting for some iof the most interest- 
ing work of Mark Twain's pen. The 
town goes strong on the author of 
the story about Tom Sawyer and 
Huckleberry Finn. It has preserved 
Mark Twain's home, Mark Twain's 
Cave; there is a Mark Twain Hotel, a 
Mark Twain route from Chicago to 
Kansas City, and, in statue, the author 
looks down upon the stranger as he 
walks the principal street. 

Early in the afternoon we left Han- 
nibal and Missouri behind, crossed 
the Mississippi ana again essayed 
the Pike's Peak trail to the east across 
Illinois. The rain belt had extended 
over this territory and the roads were 
yet far from good, but there was an 
occasional breathing spell between 
those stretches which were altogether 
bad, and that was an improvement 
upon our experience in Old Misery. 

CROSSING ILLINOIS 

The afternoon had progressed into 
the long shadows when we followed 

133 



ILLINOIS AGAIN 

the trail down to a little collection of 
about a dozen houses and a small 
bunch of people on the map as Valley, 
where we found the Illinois river and 
no bridge. A simple little ferry scow 
here, guided by a fixed steel cable 
across the river and nosed across by 
a motor boat, served to get us over 
very nicely. Business was dull because 
of the protracted rain; but, so the 
ferryman said, ordinarily, during the 
tourist season, 30 or 40 cars are put 
across each day. 

We drove on to Jacksonville, Mor- 
gan county, that evening and at 10 
o'clock, housed the car, ate oysters at 
what was apparently a reformed sa- 
loon; and found excellent accommo- 
dations for ourselves for the night. 
The day's mileage was 145. 

On Wednesday we continued our 
journey, driving through Springfield, 
the State Capital, without stopping, 
at about 10:30 in the morning; in the 
afternoon passed through Decatur, Ma- 
con county, Tuscola, Douglas county, 
and arrived at Chrisman, a town of 
about 1,200 population in Edgar coun- 
ty, where we stopped for the night 
after 146 miles of almost constant 
struggle with the mud, outside the 

139 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

towns and a piece of -concrete going 
into Chrisman. 

On Thursday morning a little be- 
fore 10 o'clock we left Chrisman, in a 
rain sform, but our curtains were in 
place and there was a good, hard, 
gravel road for the wheels of the car 
to work ion, and who should worry! 

WITH THE HOOSIERS 

We had arrived in Indianapolis by 
noon and remained perhaps two 
hours in that prosperous city of 
260,000 population, a city full of peo- 
ple and things of interest; but at the 
same time a city so thoroughly well 
known that general observations are 
not called for. Something that partic- 
ularly appealed to the Pilot and the 
Observer after their road experience 
in Missouri and Illinois, was the pave- 
ment, macadam, brick and concrete, 
whch extended out from the city into 
the country, in some directions many 
jolly miles. 

Because of the pavements and the 
good condition generally, of Indiana's 
country roads, the drive to Richmond, 
Wayne county, was altogether enjoy- 
able. Richmond is a rather handsome 
town of 24,000 people, not very many 
miles from the state line. We arrived 

140 



CENTRAL OHIO 

at 6:30, were housed very satisfacto- 
rily, dined and yielded to the tempta- 
tions of the movies across the street, 
beginning to feel again that our other 
name wasn't Mud. The day's drive 
had been increased to 17S. 

On Friday morning, September 20. 
at 9 o'clock, the Pilot took his car out 
on the National Old Trails road and 
was soon across the state line and 
rolling through Ohio. We passed 
through Springfield, Clark county at 
11:30, directly leaving the National 
and following the Blue Grass way up to 
Maricn, the county seat of Marion 
county, whence we drove over to 
Galion, in the southeast corner of 
Crawford county. 

At Galion we took on gas and a line 
of conversation which later proved to 
be of some value to us. Because of it, 
instead of going over to Mansfield, 
Ohio, and thence up to Cleveland, a 
drive which we couild not make with 
out going far into the night, (and the 
alternative of stopping along the way 
did not appeal), we drove north from 
Galion through Crestline, Shelby and 
Ptymouth to New Haven, Huron coun- 
ty; and then drove due east to Homer- 
ville in Medina county, and thence 



141 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

north to Elyria, 25 miles from Cleve- 
land. 

A ROAD TO THE MOON 

From Galion to New Haven the 
country roads were not of the best, 
but from New Haven east, the dirt 
road was varied by some long stretch- 
es of concrete over which we were 
running in the early evening, seeming- 
ly headed straight for the big, full 
moon which was directly in our path. 
Thus we came into Homerville, where 
we turned squarely to the north with 
but one instruction, "Just follow the 
pavement and it will take you right 
into Elyria." We did. It did. 

And such a drive. Rushing through 
the silence of the night under the 
Mght of the full moon, past farms and 
farm houses, through small villages 
and towns, occasionally meeting and 
passing some late traveler hastening 
to his destination — a growing glow of 
approaching light and its sudden 
dimming; a sudden rush of air and 
sound, and then all still again but the 
purring of the engine and the crunch- 
ing of the tires upon the sand on the 
pavement beneath us! 

We arrived at Elyria at 9 o'clock, 

142 



HOMING 

having covered 248 miles out ©f Rich- 
mond, Indiana. 

THE LAST DAY'S DRIVE 

On Saturday morning, September 
21st, we were at Elyria, Ohio. On the 
following Monday morning the Observ- 
er must be at Lisle, N. Y. Between 
Elyria and Lisle were half a thousand 
uncertain miles. Between that Satur- 
day and the following Monday inter- 
vened a "gasless Sunday," when the 
consumption of gasoline in pleasure 
cars was tabu, and were countless 
embarrassments accompanying en- 
forced Sunday traveling. 

With these facts and conditions in 
mind, we drove over to Cleveland, 25 
miles, where the tanks and reservoirs 
were filled and the car given a good 
looking-over to reassure the Pilot 
that everything was all right and fit 
against a hard drive; all of which 
promised a long day and working 
overtime. 

Immediately after lunch we were 
out on Euclid avenute retracing our 
drive of five weeks before. We had not 
proceeded far before we ran into a 
rain storm travelingalonga wide path. 
In fact, although protected complete- 
ly by the rain curtains, we rushed 

143 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

tfver the pavements and milled along- 
fhrough the mud and rain almost con- 
tinuously through Ohio, into Penn- 
sylvania and though the then almost 
impossible detour east of Erie. 

Then we drove into better condi- 
tions in New York, passed through 
Westfield and, shortly thereafter, into 
a night sometimes heavily clouded 
and dark, and then, again, bright un- 
der the light of the full moon glorious 
•among the black clouds. 

We early gained the paved way 
over which mile after mile was rolled 
off with monotonous ease. A change 
in the sounds borne on the air — a 
breaking of waves upon the shore — ■ 
announced close proximity to Lake 
Erie; and we were withm sight or 
sound of its waters into the suburbs 
of Buffalo becoming more and more 
congested until, just before reaching 
the city proper, .opportunity offered 
for taking our bearings and getting 
off on the right track for a cross- 
state course. 

And we were soon in the country 
again, under clearer skies, rapidly 
rolling off the miles on our eastward 
way. In Batavia, at midnight, a res- 
taurant in which the lights were still 
burning for a party of city boys out 

144 



THE LAST DAY'S DRIVE 

for a Sunday's fishing, provided us 
with coffee and a sandwich each — our 
first refreshments since leaving Cleve- 
land — and we were off again. Soon we 
had reached, and were racing away 
from, the shadows of Caledonia, on 
through the Avons, over a detour 
into Canandaigua, through Geneva and 
Seneca Falls into Auburn where we 
arrived when the blackness of night 
was turning to the gray of morning. 

SEEING THINGS 

Directly we came out on the crest 
of a hill and, so it seemed, looked 
down upon the scene before us. The 
elevations about us were black shad- 
ows and the landscape was made tip 
of dark masses unrelieved by detail. 
There were promontories jutting out 
from the shore which confined a little 
bay and appeared to terminate in a 
ragged headland standing in black 
relief against the larger body of water 
beyond. And the waters of the bay 
lay unrippled in the stillness of the 
early morning, not yet shimmering 
under the sunlight, but dully metalic 
as reflecting a hazy, colorless sky. 

"Can this be Onondaga lake?" ex- 
claimed the Observer. 

"No, there is no lake here; you are 

145 



OVER BLAZED TRAILS 

looking at the sky and clouds, man," 
answered the Pilot; and then he add- 
ed, "but I never saw anything like 
that before." And probably, he was 
right. 

It was 6:30, Sunday morning, Sep- 
tember 22nd, when we drove into his 
garage at the Pilot's residence in 
Syracuse, New York, having covered 
400 miles in one drive, since leaving 
Elyria, Ohio, Saturday morning at 9 
o'clock. And thus was brought to a 
close a tour covering more than 4,700 
miles, from the Dudley creek bridge 
in Lisle, New York, to the foot of 
Pike's Peak and a return to Syracuse, 
without an accident and with no en- 
gine or tire trouble of any kind on 
the way. 



146 



